THE issue of whether or not Lancashire County Council was right to withdraw 24-hour home care on costs grounds from a now-dead East Lancashire stroke victim, aged 88, is one of those cases in which the ideal world clashes with the real world.

But does it need the wisdom of eminent judges in the Appeal Court to determine which is preferable - or right?

For the harsh practicality may have been that, in scrapping the £350-a-week home care that aged stroke sufferer, the late Mrs Annie Ingham, evidently found more beneficial than being in a nursing home, the county was reacting to the pressures on its resources. But which comes first - the balance sheet or what is best for a person?

Acting for Mrs Ingham's daughter, barrister Cherie Booth argues that the individual has priority and that the local authority was unlawful in ditching that premise because it was hard up.

A caring society can only support that ideal.

And judgment must be for that principle - otherwise the values of compassion and humanity that are the hallmarks of a civilised society may be held to ransom by those who exchange such standards with money.

Let the principle triumph, then, so that harsh reality is kept at bay.

But if reality cannot be dodged, then will the judges perhaps condemn those who starved the County Council of money - and made Mrs Ingham experience a reality she did not deserve?

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