Cameron promises housing, childcare, tax giveaways

Mr Cameron's claim that the Conservatives are "the party of working people" is part of an attempt to further squeeze Ukip and to win back voters who used to be attracted to Margaret Thatcher's policies in the 1980s.

The relaunch of the Thatcherite Right to Buy scheme is aimed at 1.3m people in housing association properties, who will now have the same right to buy their home as their counterparts living in council homes.

Over the last week the Conservatives have tried to widen their appeal away from a previous focus on the economy and leadership to a series of policies targeted at voters in key marginal seats.

They include a proposed freezing of rail fares and the promise of an additional £8bn of funding for the NHS by 2020, leading to claims by Ed Miliband that the Tories are "throwing money around" without saying where it would come from.

The flurry of pledges has undercut Conservative claims that Labour is the party with uncosted policies, but it nevertheless marks a new phase in the Tory campaign.

"We are trading a bit of "economic competence" to try to recover some ground on the NHS," said one leading Tory. He said that Mr Miliband, in refusing to match Tory promises on NHS spending, was "trading on his lead on the NHS to try to claw back some ground on economic competence".

Both Tories and Labour are trying to broaden their appeal in an attempt to engineer a breakthrough in an election campaign which is currently deadlocked, with most polls showing the parties neck-and-neck.

Lord Ashcroft, the Tory peer and pollster, has claimed that it is too late for Labour to try to assert its credentials as a fiscally credible party, just as it is too late for the Conservatives to shift deep-rooted public attitudes.

He said the Tories should have moved earlier to address public perceptions that "the Tories were not on their side and were not to be trusted with public services like the NHS".

Lord Ashcroft said: "The Tories now score no better on these measures than they did at the last election. If too many voters see the Tories as the nasty party, they seem unlikely to win anyone over by ramping up the attacks on Miliband."

Many Tory candidates believe the party should scale back personal attacks on the Labour leader but they nevertheless report that negative comments by voters on Mr Miliband's character are a recurring theme on the doorstep.

They also endorse the strategy promoted by Lynton Crosby, the party's campaign chief, to raise fears among English voters of a minority Labour government beholden to the Scottish National party.

In spite of some concerns that the party's campaign to date has been too negative and that offering unfunded promises could backfire, most candidates remain confident that the Tory party will win most seats on May 7.

"The wind is in our sails - there's no doubt about that," said one Tory candidate, recently returned from campaigning in several Con-Lab marginal seats. Another said he expected the Tories to secure 37pc of the voters, to Labour's 33pc, just enough to see Mr Cameron returned to Downing Street.

Key to that could be whether the Tories can maintain pressure on wavering Ukip supporters to return to the fold - a phenomenon which has already been witnessed in a series of polls in marginal seats.

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