A former Conservative MP and diplomat writes in The Times

Here.

The only way to get a torpid electorate really worked up is to propose things for which they would rather die than vote. To this end I have roughed out ... a list of unspeakable policies that would do a deal of good to the country, but scandalise pretty much everyone who lives there...

The NHS in its present form cannot survive. It is a Stalinist, command system, and look what happened to his. Heretics will be told “ah, so you want an American system, do you?”, to which the answer is: “No, something more like the French would suit us better.” This provides a far superior service, in which adults are obliged to play their part through an insurance system...

Equally certain is the parties’ determination not to puncture another national illusion — our right to unearned profits from our houses. Why invest in productive business, indeed why strive too hard at all to keep up with workaholic foreign persons, if these returns are guaranteed, as governments have a duty to ensure?

Like the NHS, house prices are a subject steeped in mythology and voodoo economics, best expressed in the Thatcherite slogan that upwardly mobile prices would produce “a cascade of wealth” from one generation to another. Instead, here as in the United States, they helped to trigger the recession.

Stable prices are crucial to the economy, but if even buyers do not want them, what do you do? The solution? The Lib Dems’ idea of mansion-bashing is a typical bit of phoney muscle-flexing, designed as a diversion from the issue. The problem is not just the rich, it’s the lot of us, in fact.

The solution? Pain undreamt of. If we treat our main homes as businesses, tax them as a business. Instead of making houses more expensive to buy by stamp duty, cream off a portion of the profits. Not today, of course — the listing ship of state would go under if you did –— but gradually, over time. Try this one in the election and the door will slam in your face even quicker than when you promise a brand new, efficient, non-British NHS.