18 posters in which the Conservatives promise to build more houses. The last one appeared in 1979
by Stephen Tall on February 19, 2014
The Conservative Party: the party of house-building. Really. Don’t believe me? It’s true. They used to talk about little else.
Of course you have to go back a little way…
Here we are in 1950, the year before the Conservatives began 13 years of continuous rule…
A one-off? Nope. Here’s 1951…
By the time it got to 1954, one poster just wasn’t enough…
So they did a second…
Then a third…
Then it was an election year, 1955. Time to hit the message home…
Again (1956)…
And again (1957)…
And again (1958)…
A new decade began. But, in 1960, it was the same old message…
With no let-up in 1962…
Or 1963. Got the message yet? No? Well, then…
Let’s keep ’em coming…
And coming…
Then it was time for another election (1964)…
Which meant more posters…
The Tories lost power in 1964. Labour governed for six years. So what did the Tories do in 1970?
Attack Labour for not building more houses…
After five more years out of power, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives repeated the attack on Labour for not building more houses in 1979…
And: that’s it.
After 1979, the Conservatives turned their attention from house-building to home-owning, from those in need of a house to those who already have one.
There hasn’t been a single Conservative Party poster calling for more house-building in the last 35 years (to my knowledge).
Unless you count David Cameron’s oh-so-specific pledge in 2007:
(All images above sourced from the Conservative Party Archive digital poster collection held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.)
4 comments
I presume that because I earn very well and ‘just’ about managed to buy a family home I am supposed to be really grateful to Osborne for stoking another house price boom.
Yet my younger siblings have no chance of getting their own home and my children can certainly forget about it.
I’m not grateful, I’m seething at the injustice of it, for heavens sake drop the draconian planning restrictions and building regs and taxes, get Britain building again!
by Dan on February 20, 2014 at 12:25 pm. #
The last Tory one on Labour cutting NHS and schools spending, was a bit hypocritical considering the cuts they made to education and the NHS after 1979
by John Reid on February 20, 2014 at 3:56 pm. #
Pre 1979: Baby boomers wanted to get on the housing later, so wanted cheap homes
Post 1979: Baby boomers own houses and want to protect their home value.
This entire country is run for the benefit of a single generation at the expense of everyone else. Go to any NIMBY protest and tell me how many under 50s you see. Hardly any.
by Trevor Stedman on February 20, 2014 at 5:22 pm. #
Great post. More blood boiling that a Daily Fail article.
The obvious turn away from the needs of people to the needs of the few could not be better highlighted.
How did it go so far wrong?
by Gavin Donald on October 4, 2015 at 1:58 pm. #