Cameron echoes Thatcher with vote-catching homes offer

David Cameron is taking a song from Margaret Thatcher’s playbook by making the right to own a home a cornerstone issue in the election. In a bid to woo members of Generation Rent, he will promise today to build 200,000 cut-price starter homes by 2020.

By extending the coalition’s existing Help to Buy scheme, he hopes to rekindle the Tories chances of winning a majority – or just winning - on 7 May. Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ campaign – allowing council tenants to buy their homes cheaply – was controversial but it helped win elections.

Cameron’s scheme is not about council tenants – it’s about helping adults under 40 by offering a 20 per cent discount on the price of a new home. That could save the average first-time buyer £43,000 on a £218,000 home (the average cost paid by a first-time buyer).

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The discount will be made possible by waiving the fees developers normally have to pay local authorities towards community infrastructure such as roads and schools on new estates. Developers will be expected to pass the saving to customers.

Figures show that home ownership among young adults has fallen rapidly from nearly 60 per cent to 36 per cent because wages have no hope of keeping pace with rocketing property prices. Cameron will say that too many young people with full-on, full-time jobs are still having to live with their parents well into their 30s.

The Financial Times says today’s announcement by the PM is the last of six speeches identifying key Tory manifesto themes. The Conservatives will be pinning their hoping on it making a difference: they have been flat-lining in the polls and after today they have only more real opportunity to woo the electorate when George Osborne presents his Budget in two weeks’ time.

• Don Brind: Tory unease grows - why are polls not budging?

The failure of either the Conservatives or Labour to pull ahead in the opinion polls has led to growing talk over the weekend of both parties planning for a second general election this year, on the assumption that the 7 May election will result in a hung parliament and a fragile minority government.

The Sunday Times reported that senior Tories are so certain there will be a second election that they’re planning a ‘Save Dave’ campaign to persuade Cameron not to stand down if he loses on 7 May, because it would be easier to fight a second election without the need for a “bloody” leadership contest.

One of the questions asked about the seemingly insensitive timing of the Tories’ ‘Black and White Ball’ last month was why on earth did they need to raise any more money? Now we have the answer: they’re planning for a two elections.

The Daily Telegraph says Labour are making plans, too. The paper quotes a shadow cabinet minister saying his party would run a minority government and then aim to call a second general election before it gets too dark at night to canvass on the doorsteps.

“You would do a big, popular Budget and keep challenging the Commons to vote down our reforms,” the shadow minister said. “Then, go again before the clocks go back.”