UK prime minister's 'good life' pledge for working families

David Cameron , the UK prime minister, on Tuesday evoked the spirit of Margaret Thatcher in a bid to break the deadlock in next month's knife-edge general election, reviving one of her key policies as he promised a "good life" for voters in a revived economy.

He pledged to give 1.3m tenants of social housing the right to buy their homes at a discount as he sought to inject an upbeat message into his neck-and-neck campaign against the opposition Labour party.

He was unveiling the Conservative election manifesto, which also repeated his promise to hold an "in-out" referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, set to be held in 2017 if he wins on May 7.

Mr Cameron said he wanted to use a second term in office to turn the "good news on the economy into good news for you and your family", referring to the recent pace of Britain's economic growth, which has been faster than many of its Group of Seven peers.

"The truth is we are on the brink of something special in this country," Mr Cameron declared. "Britain can be this buccaneering, world-beating, can-do country again."

Frustrated by opinion polls showing the Conservatives locked in a virtual tie with Labour despite the economic recovery, Mr Cameron put at the centre of the manifesto the promise to sell off housing association homes - a reworking of Mrs Thatcher's mass sale of state-owned housing stock that won her many working-class votes in the 1980s.

Housing associations are now the main providers of social housing in the UK. While they are not-for-profit, privately owned organisations, they are regulated by the state and usually receive public funding.

Mr Cameron insisted that the Conservatives, in coalition since 2010 with the centrist Liberal Democrats, were "the party of working people". His pitch was not just targeted at Labour supporters. It was also aimed at countering the threat from the UK Independence party, a rightwing group with significant working-class support that has attracted Conservative voters with its anti-immigration and anti-EU policies.

The manifesto pledged to extend free childcare for "working families" to 30 hours a week - the equivalent of £5,000 a year. It also promised that no one earning the minimum wage would have to pay income tax - a policy Mr Cameron described as the "tax-free minimum wage under the Conservatives".

Over the last week the Conservatives have tried to widen their appeal from a previous focus on the economy and fiscal austerity to a series of policies targeted at voters in key marginal seats. The party has also worked to present a more optimistic tone.

The shift followed polls showing the two main parties remain deadlocked, with little sign of the breakout the Conservatives were counting on to deliver a decisive victory. Most analysts expect another coalition. The Conservatives fear they could be squeezed out of power by Labour governing with the support of a surging Scottish National party or other parties, including the Lib Dems.

The Conservatives have proposed freezing rail fares and providing an additional £8bn of funding for the National Health Service by 2020.

That led to claims by Ed Miliband, Labour leader, that they were "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 nevertheless marks a new phase in the Conservative campaign. "We are trading a bit of 'economic competence' to try to recover some ground on the NHS," said one leading Conservative.

Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative peer and pollster, has claimed that Mr Cameron 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".

But most Conservative candidates remain confident that the party will win most seats on May 7.

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

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

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation