SOCIAL care was the issue that detonated under the previously untroubled Conservative election campaign.

Theresa May’s rapid U-turn – notwithstanding attempts to portray it as a manifesto “clarification” – gave the first indication the Government’s passage to an increased majority might not be as smooth as it had hoped.

The retraction has not entirely defused claims that the plan to include the value of someone’s home when deciding how much they should pay for care amounts to a “dementia tax”.

And with a plan to diminish the pensions “triple-lock” and means test the winter fuel allowance, the damage to Conservative support among older voters is hard to assess.

Other areas of social policy such as welfare have been equally controversial. While the Conservatives plan to press ahead with a further £9 billion of benefits cuts already pledged, the party has also varied a 2015 commitment to having “no new welfare cuts”.

The 2017 manifesto quietly changed this to “no plans for further radical welfare reform”.

Meanwhile all the other main parties have pledged to roll back existing Tory welfare policies to some degree.

Reversing the “bedroom tax”, reforming the controversial benefit Universal Credit, and a universal basic income are all to be found in manifestos, with some pledges costed and some not.

Labour has pledged a review of benefits, but allocated just £2bn to it – suggesting according to critics, that the party is endorsing or at the very least accepting the remaining £7bn of planned cuts.

It has been difficult to clarify whether it and other parties will end the freeze on increases to benefit payments – they say the system itself is so complex it makes easy answers impossible.

The two-child limit for those claiming tax credits, with the “rape clause” it entails, is another policy which several party manifestos pledge to reverse. Nevertheless these are policy areas where facts are at a premium – some see the UK Government’s recent reforms as necessary to tackle a welfare dependency which supports the workshy, and a system which is widely defrauded.

Others describe them as cruel, and an attack on the poor – while pointing to the fact that the cost to the UK of benefit fraud is tiny compared with, for example, tax fraud and the majority of those claiming benefits do so despite being in work.

Facts are also somewhat less than tangible in the debate over the NHS.

The budget for NHS England, Westminster controlled, will rise by £8bn under the Tories over the next five years, Theresa May claims, but there is dispute about whether much of this may already have been allocated in a 2015 spending review. None of the parties’ pledges come anything close to the promise of £350 million a week for the NHS which was dangled in front of voters during the EU referendum.

Action to tackle the housing crisis is another prominent feature of manifestos, with Jeremy Corbyn having made much of the need to prevent rough sleeping and provide new homes. This, like the health budget, is an area where MPs control only what happens south of the border, as housing is devolved.

Conservatives

n Assessing the homes of those needing social care, with any value over £100,000 liable to be used to help pay for care.

n £8billion for NHS England over the next five years.

n One million new homes by 2020.

n Press ahead with Universal Credit roll-out to ensure that it always pays to be in work.

n “Tailored” employment support for disabled or people with a long-term health condition.

Labour

n Scrap the “bedroom tax” and the “abhorrent” rape clause.

n End benefit sanctions regime and reverse previous cuts to the disability benefit ESA.

n £11.6bn for the NHS, funded by new taxes on highest earners – giving staff a pay rise and cutting one million from waiting lists.

n £2bn fund to review the working of Universal Credit.

n Will build 100,000 homes a year over the next parliament, provide 4,000 homes for rough sleepers and reinstate housing benefit for under 22s.

SNP:

n Support an increase in health spending per head of population in England to current Scottish level, which is seven per cent higher.

n Remove the freeze on benefits, abolish the third child tax credit policy and “rape clause”.

n Retain the triple lock on pensions and protect the winter fuel allowance.

n Support a UK-wide alternative to austerity that will release almost £120bn for public spending over next parliament.

Liberal Democrats

n Reverse cuts to universal credit and focus support on young people.

n End the benefits freeze and protect the pensions triple lock.

n Scrap the “bedroom tax”, and the two child limit for tax credits and the “rape clause”.

n £8.5bn for the NHS, funded by a penny in the pound on income tax.

n 300,000 new homes a year by 2022 and reinstate housing benefit for under 22s.

UKIP

n Scrap the “bedroom tax”.

n Review disability benefits and stop further cuts.

n Ban EU Nationals entering Britain since March 2017 from claiming benefits.

Green

n Increase the minimum wage to reach a genuine living wage of £10 an hour by 2020.

n A social security system to redress benefits injustice.

n Set up a pilot scheme as first step towards a universal basic income.