Panicking Tories need to rebuild and deliver on housing

The Conservatives are getting their knickers in a twist, and it’s not a Brexit twist. The latest navel-gazing is over new polling published this week which suggests that, unless the Tories can win over the young, they are doomed at the next election and possibly for the next generation.

If the numbers are to be believed, they are ghastly for the Tories. The figures from a new report from Onward, the right of centre think-tank, show that 83 per cent of Conservative voters are now over 45, compared to 53 per cent of Labour voters. Polling for the Generation Why? report also revealed that the median age at which a person is more likely to vote Tory is now 51.  This was up from 47 at the 2017 general election, and 34 before the 2017 election.

What’s more, Onward warned that the Tory brand is so toxic, particularly among younger women, that the party does even pass the “rudimentary hygiene tests”, whatever that means. With the move of youngsters out of the regions into London and other big cities, it says the brand can only get worse as city-dwellers tend to be lefties.

As you can imagine, this news sent the Tories into a tizzy. Matthew Hancock, the Health Secretary, warned: “Voting Conservative used to be something people started to think about doing when they got their first pay cheque, and now it’s something people start to do when they get their first winter fuel allowance.”

Hancock was joined by Penny Mordaunt, and other youngsters such as Tom Tughenhat, in arguing the party needed a “kick up the arse” and that it must find ways of appealing to the young. The Onward report claims that the Tories should move to the centre ground, appealing to BME people and women in particular.

They are wrong, and miss the point.  What the Tories need more than a kick is a coherent political philosophy which appeals to all ages, from cradle to grave.  Political parties are not brands like ASOS or AXA, which have to tailor and sell different fashion or insurance products to suit different age groups for specific purposes.

Politics is about spirit, attitude and aspiration. It’s about a style not fashion. Political leadership is about telling a story, about selling a dream and taking your audience with it, whatever their age. And right now, sadly, there is not a single Tory minister or MP who seems to have a story to tell.

Margaret Thatcher had her story to tell, one of economic revolution. She showed she meant it by allowing more people to become homeowners, by selling off council housing at a discount. Yet Thatcher never mentioned that she was doing this for the young; her message was aspirational for all ages.

Interestingly, Jeremy Corbyn tried to go for the specific youth vote at the last election by promising the young free tuition fees. But that has spectacularly backfired. The young are not stupid. They sussed out that his plan was hype and he has been found out. His ratings are dreadful.

If the Conservatives want to win over the young, and indeed persuade the old like me, ( I am over 51) they must have a convincing story to tell once Brexit is done and dusted.

There is only one story in town: build more homes. The young want to own their own homes without robbing a bank. And the point is that their parents and their families want that for them too. That is the missing bit in the current Tory philosophy.  The UK has a shortage of affordable housing and a shortfall of 100,000 homes per year. Around 1.3 million households are on UK waiting lists for affordable homes yet there are only 30,000 new properties coming on the market each year over the last 10 years.

There are about eleven million so-called Millennials, a big pool of potential voters. Yet many of them know they will not be able to buy a house without parental help, or a gift from the gods, until they are in their early forties.  Average house prices are now up to 20 times average salaries.

Two of my children are in their mid-twenties, both professionals earning decent enough salaries, and paying £1000 a month each in rent sharing homes in London. Yet without help or a fairy godmother, they now accept they will never own even a two-bedroom flat let alone a home in the city for years to come. Most of their friends – also working in what would be considered well-paid jobs in publishing or law or insurance – also know they will be in their late 30s or early 40s before they climb the property ladder.

The young know this, their parents know this, the politicians know this and the planners know this. We also know the reasons why housing is so expensive and in short-supply: planning takes forever, change of use from commercial to residential takes years, private landlords have been encouraged to gobble up property because of cheap mortgages, private developers are sitting on land supplies, and the costs of building are too high. Many of the building methods are outdated too.

If the Tories want to swing the youth vote, they should scream housing from the rooftops. They should hire a top brain from business to come up with an ambitious long term plan— someone like Nigel Wilson, the chief executive of Legal & General, the insurance giant. A lone voice for years, Wilson has been arguing the UK must invest in housing and infrastructure if it is to improve the country’s wealth and its productivity.

Indeed, he is so convinced of the need for more and cheaper housing that Legal & General is investing billions in housing itself, buying a modular house-building factory  in Leeds. It has invested in house-builders such as Cala in its aim to be the UK’s biggest private housebuilder.

But the country needs scale, and the only way to achieve this is to put someone like Wilson in charge of a national government led housing programme. It would need powers to compulsory purchase brown field sites in cities – where the young want to live – and break up the green belt. The private sector would soon follow.

The Conservative manifesto of 2015 promised one million new homes by 2020. But that target will not be achieved at the current pace. Between April 2015 and the end of March 2017, a total of 287,600 homes were built. If the government is to meet its pledge, it will need to build more than 237,000 a year.

That’s not going to happen unless there is drastic change, and that can only come from the government. The last time Britain built housing on this sort of scale was in the 1950s after Winston Churchill narrowly won the 1951 election on a pledge of building 300,000 a year.

The story goes that Churchill summoned Harold Macmillan to Chartwell shortly after the election, and told him to get going. This is what Macmillan recorded in his diary:

“He asked me to “build the houses for the people.” What an assignment! I know nothing whatever about these matters, having spent 6 years now either on defence or foreign affairs. I had of course hoped to be Minister of Defence and said this frankly to Churchill. But he is determined to keep it in his own hands…Churchill says it is a gamble – make or mar my political career. But every humble home will bless my name, if I succeed. On the whole it seems impossible to refuse – but, oh dear, it is not my cup of tea…I really haven’t a clue how to set about the job.”

But they did get on with the job. The rest is history. The Tories today need to look back and learn. Otherwise, all the talk about reforming capitalism, making it appeal to the young, attracting the BME and women voters, is a waste of time. They need to build their way back.