Peter King: Is David Cameron leading the "same old Tories"?

Peter King is Reader in Social Thought in the Department of Public Policy at De Montfort University. His new book, The New Politics: Liberal Conservatism or the Same Old Tories?, is being published by Policy Press.

A year into the coalition is a good time to take stock: so do we have a new politics or is David Cameron’s government just the same old Tories with a liberal veneer?

Clearly, the Conservative leadership have sought to claim they represent a new form of politics that goes beyond the traditional attitudes that are often associated with the party. It is not just the same old Tories, but a new brand of politics forged out of a recognition that Britain has changed.

What helps them in this claim is that they are in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. They can claim they have transcended the narrow factionalism of politics and created a broad-based government capable of meeting the challenges of a financial crisis and an unsustainable public deficit.

But the attempt to break with the past began before May 2010. One of the innovations of David Cameron’s leadership of the Conservative Party has been to claim the mantle of progress. The Conservatives wish to be seen as the party of social justice, of social mobility and not as the party of the rich and privileged. Cameron has stated his priority is the NHS and the Conservatives have taken up the issue of climate change and sought to place wellbeing on the same level as economic growth.

Peter King: The lessons to be learnt from the Right to Buy, thirty years on

Peter King works at De Montfort University. His book, Housing Policy Transformed: The Right to Buy and the Desire to Own was published in January 2010 by Policy Press.

It is now almost exactly thirty years since one of Mrs Thatcher’s iconic social policies was launched. In 1980 the Conservative Government pushed through a Housing Act which included the Right to Buy. This allowed council tenants to purchase their dwelling at a discount of up to 70 percent.

I would suggest that this has been the most successful piece of social policy since the Second World War. No other social policy since the war could claim to have had anything like such an effect as the Right to Buy. Over 2.5 million council dwellings - over 35% of the total - have been sold, giving these households the opportunity to own their own home and be free of local government interference. No longer were households told when and what colour their house would be painted. Once they has had bought their home they were able to use their own home as they pleased, to change it, improve it and to sell it when they pleased.

There are several useful lessons that can be learnt about the Right to Buy. The first, is the need to go with the grain of human nature and not to try and force people to behave in ways that are not natural to them. The Right to Buy played on our natural self-interest, to do the best for ourselves and our families. The policy encouraged households to be independent and take responsibility for themselves. These households now had an asset they could use to better themselves or to pass onto their children.