CAMERON PLEDGES GOOD LIFE FOR ALL

PM says Tories aren’t just party of cuts as manifesto offers lifetime of security

DAVID Cameron pledged yesterday to deliver the ‘good life’ for hard-working Britons.

The Prime minister unveiled a radical Tory manifesto promising voters ‘security at every stage of your life’.

He put childcare, home ownership, lower taxes and an end to death duties at the centre of a deliberately optimistic pitch to remain in power.

mr Cameron sought to shrug off impressions of the Conservatives as being focused solely on deficit reduction – promising ‘the greatest sunshine’ after five years of an economic rescue mission that has put Britain on the brink of greatness.

He told voters the next five years are ‘much more important’ for the UK than the last five – saying they would be ‘about turning the good news in our economy into a good life for you and your family’.

‘At the heart of this manifesto is a simple proposition. We are the party of working people, offering you security at every stage of your life,’ he said. Key measures in the Tory manifesto included:

The biggest extension of margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy since its inception in 1980. The Tories pledged an extension of the right-to-buy scheme to as many as 1.3million housing association tenants in England. Widely seen as a key commitment, establishing the Tories’ credentials as a party of ambition, the policy will not apply in Scotland where Holyrood has precedence and the SNP has already decided to end sales.

A ‘tax-free minimum wage’ and relief for middle- class workers on the higher 40p income tax rate

Doubling free childcare for parents with children aged three and four to 30 hours a week, saving £2,500 per child

A tightening of strike laws to prevent union leaders disrupting public services and transport

An extra £8billion above inflation for the NHS by 2020

An end to inheritance tax for all but millionaires

An in/out referendum on Britain’s EU membership

A pledge to eliminate the deficit and run a budget surplus by 2020

Other commitments include an end to the spread of onshore wind farms, a free vote on the hunting ban and posthumous pardons for gay men found guilty of gross indecency.

After a campaign criticised as being too bleak, mr Cameron struck a relentlessly positive note – his repeated references to the Good Life seeming to be inspired by the upbeat 1970s BBC sitcom – while barely mentioning Labour.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: ‘What you got was a lot of the good stuff of course – more money for childcare, more money for the health service and so on – but absolutely no detail on the bad stuff, which is there’s going to have to continue to be really big cuts on welfare spending, really big cuts in local government spending, really big cuts in all the other bits of spending which haven’t been specifically protected

‘Yesterday we did not get much detail from Labour about how much they want to cut. Today we got a very clear sense that the Conservatives are going to have to do an enormous amount over the next three or four years – but no sense at all about how they are going to do it.’

With wife Samantha and Cabinet ministers watching as he launched the manifesto in Swindon, mr Cameron said Britain was ‘on the brink’ of once again being the ‘exemplary country, the small island with a massive impact, the bright light in the North Sea that has exceeded expectations decade after decade, century after century’.

He sought to correct the impression that the Conservatives are interested narrowly in cutting the deficit – setting out a passionate case for who his party stands for.

‘I didn’t come into politics to be some high-powered accountant and just balance the books,’ he insisted. ‘I desperately want this to be a country where children can make the most of their God-given talents, whatever their background. Where if you want a job, you can get one. Where if you’re working, commut- ing, saving, raising family – that you feel the odds are stacked for you, not against you.’

mr Cameron sought to dispel the notion that he is out of touch with the lives of ordinary families, saying the best moments of his premiership had been meeting new homeowners, apprentices and ‘people knowing the satisfaction of a day’s work after years on the dole’.

He added: ‘That’s what I mean by a good life – families secure, the peace of mind that comes with a proper job and a career, the security of knowing your children are getting a great education.

‘And that’s why the next five years are much, much more important than the past five. Because having rescued our economy and set Britain back on her feet, now is our chance to truly finish the job.’

Britain should not be ‘a debta ddicted, welf are - burdened, steadily declining, once- great nation – which is what we found’, the Prime minister added.

‘The greatest sunshine that there can possibly be is for more people to find work, for more people to have more of their own money to spend as they choose, for more people to be able to own their own home, for more people to have that dignity and security in retirement. We can be the country that not only lives within its means and pays its way, but offers a good life to those who work hard.’

Labour accused the Tories of

‘A chance to finish

the job’

‘throwing money around’ without saying where it would come from.

Deputy Prime minister Nick Clegg accused mr Cameron of ‘a poor cover version of Thatcher’s 1980s hits’.