Is your home at risk?
DARK AREAS SHOW WHERE THE CREDIT CRUNCH WILL HIT HARDEST She is likely to be what it calls a ‘burdened optimist’. She and her partner strive for a ‘standard of living which is largely beyond their means, supporting their spending with extensive use of all forms of credit’. They live in a terraced house worth about £105,000, earn between £25,000 and £50,000, drive secondhand cars and shop at Tesco. ‘Almost reckless in their optimism’, these are the people who might well find themselves in the eye of the financial storm — and the Conservatives’ sights.
As a result of all this information held about them, Luton Lady can expect to receive numerous ‘personal letters’ from ‘David’ and visits from Conservative canvassers, and to be targeted by ads strategically placed in local newspapers. If she is among the 2.75 million remortgaging this year, she will be very nervous indeed about her prospects. The theme of the Conservative campaign here (and nationally) is now obvious — and it is not what one would have predicted when Cameron became leader in 2005. The objective is to have voters ask: ‘Who do I trust with the economy?’ Ever since the Conservative leader worked in the Treasury, watching the pound fall out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, Conservatives have shied away from focusing on the economy. Now they must do so with a vengeance. An attack narrative must be formed: Gordon the stealthtaxer, serial spend-and-waster, the man who jilted Prudence and led the nation into an asset bubble. The man who inherited an economic boom, and went on to oversee the largest orgy of property speculation and debt creation in British peacetime history — how can you trust him again?
Whatever the results of the credit crunch, it is fairly clear that its first casualty is the feeling of prosperity. It is giving way to something that we have not seen in politics for some time: fear. Fear that the bills will keep on rising faster than one’s salary. Fear of the day when your mortgage comes up for renewal. After an absence of 15 years, economics is back at the heart of politics. People are looking for assurance. And the next election will be won by the party that is most trusted to provide it. For millions of voters and David Cameron, it is payback time.
George Bridges was Conservative campaign director until July 2007.
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