I never thought I'd be defending a UK government, but that dementia tax idea was political poison and so got ditched. However... social care was still awful last I heard about it. Like if someone became invalid the amount of care people would get per week was so pitiful (something like an hour per week) family members would sometimes have to quit their job to take care of them. In short, I'm glad I left.
Right - my point being they floated it not because it was a good idea but because they thought they had the political capital to get away with it. The Tories were too stupid to recognize political poison when it was staring them in the face. "Let's eliminate all banking privacy forever in the name of convenience" is a quintessentially Tory idea.
If your point is that the Tories will stoop to any low they can get away with, I couldn't agree more. I'm not sure if it's stupidity, though, because somehow they seem to get away with almost anything. Like the billions in public contracts they handed off to their unqualified pals during the pandemic; for instance somehow they declined to have medical manufacturers produce PPE, and instead hired companies with no experience in the field whatsoever (for details). Is that stupid, or just blatantly corrupt? If they win the next election (spoiler: they probably will), they not only enriched their friends and themselves, they maintained power. I don't really think they're stupid; they're cunts.
I'm firmly of the opinion that the Tories can be both stupid and evil. Evil enough to double down on the surveillance state, stupid enough to think it won't just swell the black market. I mean fundamentally, if you grip the economy too tightly it'll slip through your fingers. See: India.