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Anorak News | Cameron’s Going Grey

Cameron’s Going Grey

by | 24th, October 2006

ISN’T there something risky about spending too much time wooing the grey vote?

We live longer than ever before, but the elderly are closer to the end than the beginning and cannot be relied upon to be around at voting time, much less to remember what issues they are voting on.

If the Tories really want to be re-elected, David Cameron should tour the country’s nursing homes dressed as Winston Churchill.

His team of young Conservatives may care to dress up as World War II wrens and deliver piping hot dinners with a cheery “LOOK OUT IN THE BLACKOUT! – vote for Winston.”

But for now Dave is thinking about what to do with the aged and how to get them to vote for him.

As the Times reports, Dave’s been addressing a conference at Age Concern. “We must think in a new way about housing design and urban planning. Housing in Britain never seems to be built with a whole lifetime in mind,” says Dave.

“We need to change the planning rules so that we get fewer small flats and more homes with gardens. Fewer homes designed for young single people, and more designed for life — universal design,” says Dave.

“Universal design!” We like that. Who needs choice, starter homes and granny flats when you can have a one box fits all approach, albeit with a garden and Cameron-styled gnome?

It’s housing by Ikea.

Dave is in tune with the grey voters. So much so, that the Telegraph says he’s going grey. “We detected a sprinkling of grey hairs stretching about two inches back from his ears,” says the paper.

Dave has wings, like a modern-day god, or Paulie Walnuts, hitman for the hit TV show the Sopranos. But, of course, what look like grey flecks to the aged are in actual fact highlights when viewed by younger voters.

But back to the houses. And the Times hears from one of its old employees, Michael Gove, now working as the Tories’ housing spokesman. Says he: “Thought has to be given so that people aren’t trapped in one or two rooms in multi-storey houses. It means more bungalow living, as opposed to less flexible vertical houses.”

Vertical houses, eh. Again we are impressed by this rebranding of what were once simply called “homes”.

And we like the idea of living in one address for all our lives. For one thing, it cuts down on the amount of stamp duty many of us have to pay the Government each time we buy a home.

And for another, when the memory begins to fade, it makes it harder to forget where we live…



Posted: 24th, October 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink