Britons are obsessed with home ownership, but an acute housing shortage has put it out of the reach of many. The last census, in 2011, recorded the first fall in the number of owner-occupiers for more than half a century. The Conservative manifesto, launched on April 14th, borrows a policy from the past with the aim of arresting this trend and breaking the electoral deadlock. In 1980 Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government gave local council tenants the right to buy their homes at generous discounts. Since then, some 1.9m households have done so. Many claim the policy created a horde of new home-owning Tory voters, securing 18 years of continuous government for the party.
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