Ministers can't complain that no one told them about the escalating cost of an ageing society. In the past few weeks, all designed to influence the chancellor as he plans his Autumn Statement, there has been a blizzard of reports warning not only that adult care is about to collapse but that its disintegration will bring down the NHS as well.

If ministers were to implement the policy ideas currently thrust before them from the various think-tanks, they would (a) make the NHS and adult care a single budget (b) whack up income tax to pay for it all (c) get everyone to pay for their adult care by selling their homes except for the very poor who will end up in a modern version of workhouses (d) encourage mass immigration of young people to pay for the care of the baby boomers (e) muddle along till the next election.