Cameron revives Thatcher policy
Hopes to get re-elected by offering 1.3m poorer families a chance to buy their own homes
Prime Minister David Cameron pinned his Conservative Party’s hopes of re-election on offering 1.3 million poorer families a chance to buy their own homes.
With less than four weeks to go until the May 7 vote and the polls still neck-and-neck, Cameron is reviving one of Margaret Thatcher’s most popular policies, the sale of houses owned by local councils to tenants at discounts of at least a third. In the Tories’ election manifesto published yesterday, he pledged to extend the policy to cover the nonprofit housing associations that are some of Britain’s biggest landlords.
Party of working people
Anyone who has rented a property for at least three years will be entitled to buy it at a discount. The housing association will be required to build a new home to replace each one it sells off. “At the heart of this manifesto is a simple proposition: We are the party of working people,” Cameron said in a speech announcing the manifesto yesterday in Swindon, western England. “We are there for you, offering security at every stage of your life.”
The manifesto reiterates Conservative promises not to increase income tax, national insurance or value-added tax, as well as increasing the level at which people start paying income tax to £12,500 ($18,300). It recommits Cameron to calling a referendum on leaving the EU by the end of 2017.
Cameron also vowed to invest £38 billion in the rail network by 2019, and to build a new Crossrail link through London from north of the capital in Hertfordshire to south in Surrey.
British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron launched his party’s manifesto yesterday, promising a return to the “good life” and the revival of a housing policy associated with Margaret Thatcher if he wins May’s election.
Cameron announced an extension of the “right-to-buy” housing policy of 1980s “Iron Lady” Thatcher, revealed plans for free childcare and pledged that minimum-wage workers will pay no income tax.
With opinion polls putting the centre-right Tories neckand-neck with the opposition Labour Party, he tried to play on Labour’s weak reputation on the economy in a bid to put his side ahead in the last few weeks of campaigning.
“We’re on the brink of something special,” he told activists at a school in Swindon, southwest England. “Let’s not let Labour drag us back to square one.
“We can turn the good news in the economy into a good life for you and your family. Britain can be this buccaneering, world-beating, can-do country again”.
The Conservatives blame Labour for running up a budget deficit of some £90 billion (Dh477 billion; $130 billion) during 13 years in government before they were voted out in 2010 and replaced by a ToryLiberal Democrat coalition.
Neither main party looks set to win outright on May 7, raising the prospect of another coalition or a minority government.
The “right-to-buy” scheme will extend home purchase discounts already enjoyed by some tenants to 1.3 million more tenants of housing associations — private non-profits that provide low-rent accommodation that often receive public subsidy.
“Conservatives have dreamed of building a property-owning democracy for generations, and today I can tell you what this generation of Conservatives is going to do,” Cameron said.
Housing crisis
Aimed at tackling Britain’s housing crisis, a hot political issue as house prices and rents have soared amid a shortage of low-cost homes, the pledge will extend an iconic policy first introduced by Thatcher in 1980 and popular with aspirational lower income voters.
Critics claim the original “right-to-buy” policy fuelled Britain’s housing crisis by reducing the amount of affordable housing available.
But Cameron insisted this would not be the case this time as his plan would require each property sold to be replaced on a one-for-one basis.
At the manifesto launch, the prime minister added that he would work for “the people who live within the rules” if reelected before announcing two other key policies.
Facing accusations that his party serves only the rich, Cameron unveiled plans which would mean no one working 30 hours a week or less on the minimum wage, currently £6.50 an hour, would pay tax.