Prime Minister David Cameron today said 2016 will be a “game-changer” for the UK in a special New Year message to the country, listing reforms to home ownership and a crackdown on extremism as key priorities in 2016.
“We are going to spend this year delivering the education, training, jobs, tax cuts, healthcare and housing people need. But we’re also going to make sure no-one should be on the outside looking in at all these things – that everyone is a part of Britain’s rise,” Cameron said.
“In doing so, we can make 2016 a game changer for our country,” he added.
“For me, there are no new year’s resolutions, just the resolve to continue delivering what we promised in our manifesto,” he said, naming the problems of low home ownership, poverty, poor social mobility and extremism as his four priorities in 2016.
“If we really get to grips with these problems this year, we won’t just be a richer nation, but a stronger, more unified, more secure one. It won’t be easy.
“I genuinely believe we are in the middle of one of the great reforming decades in our history – what I would call a ‘turnaround decade’, where we can use the platform of our renewed economic strength to go for real social renewal,” Cameron’s message on the website ‘ConservativeHome’ read.
The message comes as a survey for ‘The Times’ newspaper found that Cameron’s popularity as British Prime Minister is at an all-time high, with many voters wanting him to remain at Downing Street beyond his term until 2020.
A State of the Nation YouGov poll indicated today that 55 per cent of Conservative voters want him to delay his departure until just before the 2020 election at the earliest.
Of those, 22 per cent want him to break his declaration and seek to serve a third term as Prime Minister.
Only 15 per cent of Tory voters are urging him to leave office before 2019.
Among the wider electorate, 37 per cent of voters want Cameron to remain as leader until the 2020 election and 11 per cent want him to stay longer.
Only 32 per cent want him to stand down before 2019.
Cameron had declared in March that he would not seek a third term at the 2020 General Election but has not unveiled a time-table to step down as Conservative party leader to make way for a new prime ministerial candidate.