Everyone's talking about the National Care Service

Gordon Brown's fightback speech has been spun as the last roll of the dice by the media. And while there's no consensus whether he's rolled a double-six or snake eyes, it's great that at the heart of the coverage has been the government's idea for a new National Care Service.

It's the first time that the general public have caught this new idea and I hope it means that Labour intend to make care a key general election issue. Then we can all put each of the big parties under the spotlight and find out what they are going to do about fixing the social care and enabling every older person to live well.

It's really important that Labour have decided to call their idea the 'National Care Service'. You can see the politics of it, it sounds like something for everyone, and aspires to be as valued as our National Health Service. The devil will be in the detail though. Who pays and how? What support can people expect? And will people really be in control of thier own care and have choices that work for them? The sense of this being for everyone means that people will be able to understand it, know it could affect them and their loved-ones and we'll have a genuine debate with every party about what they would do.

But we've got to make sure it's not a flash in the pan. Some leading pollsters said at conference that it's not likely to be a big election issue. They said that, like climate change, the ageing population and sorting care for older people is big, inevitable and needs sorting but the public have not even started to really think about it and are unlikely to cast their vote on it. I think that's pessimistic, we've got to keep coming back to the issue and keep it as high profle as possible. WRVS landed a slot on BBC News yesterday afternoon to talk about the proposals, coup - I did the honours being interviewed by Jon Sopel and I thought that at least the few thousands watching would start to think about this vital issue, but I was brought back down to earth when my partner told me that my mother-in-law's key comment on the story was that I looked like I'd put on a lot of weight.

Clearly we need to find ways to make fixing the social care crisis a story many times over before the election, and I had better get back to doing workouts with Davina.