The prime minister’s amnesia tour of the country’s marginal constituencies ended in an icy-cold warehouse outside Colchester.
David Cameron had started out in Leeds two months previously, promising to lay out his party’s six election commitments but at some point along the way the commitments had been variously downgraded to promises, pledges and comments. Not that it really mattered, because by the time the roadshow reached Essex no one could remember what the first four or five had been.
“I’m here to lay out my final election theme,” the prime minister said. Theme was a new one – somewhere between a commitment and a comment, though still subdivided into five pledges. Or pledgettes. Cameron wanted to talk about housing. Everyone who worked hard and did the right thing should be allowed to have the security of owning their own home. If not one quite as big as his garage.
Having first promised to keep interest rates at their current level despite them not being under his control and being predicted to rise within two years, Cameron then moved on to his Vision. For Mystic Dave, a vision may rank even lower than a comment. His eyes watered over as he recalled how he had met Barry, Sam and baby Alfie last September.
“Barry and I both grew up near Didcot in Oxfordshire,” he said. He and Barry had hung out in the school playground together, had sneaked their first crafty fags together and then... Well, he and Barry had rather drifted apart until last year’s photo op. But it had been good to see that Barry had been doing the right thing and that Dave had been able to find him a new three-bedroomed house through his right to buy scheme.
Dave wanted more. Much more. His vision now extended to conjuring 200,000 new starter homes that would come at a 20% discount for first-time buyers by cutting back on the targets for affordable homes by 200,000.
It was a vision of such clarity and brilliance, he couldn’t think why no one had thought of it before. “Builders didn’t like the section 106 regulation that forced them to build affordable homes,” he declared. “So we’ve just got rid of it. Instead they have agreed to build starter homes at discount prices.”
He made it sound like a carpet sale where prices were discounted from an imaginary price. Some of these homes might even come with doors. Glass in the windows would be extra. Heating in the ThinkBDW warehouse wouldn’t have gone amiss, either.
And where would these new homes be built? “I’m a countryman, I love our countryside,” said the man from Notting Hill with a second home in the Cotswolds. “When it comes to the green belt, the line remains scored in the sand.”
This caused some confusion as people struggled to think of any deserts in the green belt. Other than the bunkers at Wentworth golf course.
Naturally, Dave didn’t want any of these ghastly new starter homes built anywhere near him and he could quite appreciate that many other people wouldn’t want them built anywhere near them, either. But he did think they ought to be built near somebody, so he was going to leave local councils to fight it out among themselves.
Dave collapsed, exhausted by his themes and visions. “That’s all I have time for,” he gasped. A phone rang. Was it the call of the wild? No. It was Barry. Could someone please come round and finish off the snagging?
