David Cameron has said his aim is to guarantee a "good life" for British workers and families as he launched the Conservatives' election manifesto.
The prime minister said he wanted "to finish the job" of rebuilding Britain on behalf of "working people".
He pledged to take minimum wage workers out of tax, double free childcare to 30 hours a week and boost home ownership by extending the "right to buy".
Labour said the Conservatives were the "party of the richest in society".
The Conservative launch in Swindon came the day after Ed Miliband put forward Labour's version - promising to improve the lives of Britain's workers and not to pay for any policies through additional borrowing.
The main Conservative pledges in the 83-page document include:
- Extending the right-to-buy scheme to housing association tenants in England.
- Taking workers on the minimum wage out of income tax by increasing the personal allowance
- 30 hours free childcare for three and four-year-olds, "worth £5,000 a year"
- Lifting the inheritance tax threshold on family homes to £1m by 2017
- No above-inflation rises in rail fares until 2020
- An extra £8bn a year for the NHS by 2020
- Opening 500 more free schools
- An EU referendum by 2017
- Plans to build 200,000 starter homes
In his speech, Mr Cameron said the Conservatives would build on the "solid foundations" laid by his government since 2010, proclaiming that Britain was "on the brink of something special" and warning that Labour would take the UK "back to square one".
"We are the party of the working people offering you security at every stage of your life," he said.
His goal over the next five years, he said, was to "turn the good news on our economy into a good life for you and your family".
"They're about realising the potential of Britain, not as a debt-addicted, welfare-burdened, steadily declining, once great nation, which is what we found. But a country where a good life is there for everyone willing to work for it."
Mr Cameron said the Conservatives had a track record of supporting working people, having taking thousands of people out of income tax altogether by raising the personal allowance to £10,600 - and with the aim of extending this to £12,500 by 2020.
A future government would go further, he said, by passing a law ensuring that no-one working 30 hours on minimum wage rates would pay income tax.
Analysis by political editor Nick Robinson
This week of political cross dressing goes on.
David Cameron tried to re-brand the Conservatives as the party of working people - the day after Ed Miliband claimed that Labour was the party of economic responsibility.
It is not just the language that has changed it is the tone.
Today the Tory leader tried to re-discover the rhetorical "sunshine" he was once associated with - with his promise to deliver "The Good Life" in a country which he claimed was on the "brink of something special".
So, gone is the "age of austerity". Gone too the warnings of red flashing lights on the dashboard. Gone all talk of difficult decisions.
Read Nick's full blog
But Mr Miliband said the Conservatives had "absolutely no idea" how this and other spending commitments would be funded.
"The reality about the Conservatives is that they are the party not of working people, from first to last and always, they are the party of the richest in our society and that is absolutely the case with what they are saying today," he said.
And the Lib Dems said the Tories' plans were a "total con" because there were no details of future cuts to public spending and welfare:
"Until they answer the question of who pays, people will just see this manifesto as a combination of secret cuts and unfunded spending commitments," said economy spokesman Danny Alexander.
In other election news:
- The Green Party launches its manifesto, pledging to "take back" the NHS from the private sector and build 500,000 social rented homes
- The Liberal Democrats highlight their own housing policies, which involve the government commissioning the building of new homes, and a pledge of at least 10 new garden cities in England and 300,00 new homes a year.
- Nick Clegg has told the BBC he will not work with the Conservatives after the election if they insist on £12bn of welfare cuts
- The latest Ashcroft and Populus opinion polls put both the Conservatives and Labour on 33%
- The UK's inflation rate remained at zero in March
A key pledge of the Conservative manifesto is the extension of right to buy, a flagship policy of Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980s, for tenants of housing associations - private, not-for-profit bodies that provide low-cost housing.
At the moment, council house tenants in England can buy their home at a discount of up to £103,900.
Key priorities
Conservative
Main pledges
- Eliminate the deficit and be running a surplus by 2018-19
- Extra £8bn above inflation for the NHS by 2020
- Extend Right to Buy to housing association tenants
- Legislate to keep people working 30 hours on minimum wage out of tax
- 30 hours of free childcare per week for working parents of 3&4-year-olds
- Hold a referendum on Britain's EU membership
Under current rules, about 800,000 housing association tenants have a "right to acquire" their homes under smaller discounts, but the Conservatives would offer those people the same reductions as for those in local authority homes.
And they would extend the scheme to those who currently have no purchase rights at all, estimated to be about 500,000 people.
The move would be funded by new rules forcing councils to sell properties ranked in the most expensive third of their type in the local area, once they become vacant, with every house purchased replaced "on a one-for-one basis".
Critics say councils started or acquired less than 2,300 homes using the proceeds of right-to-buy sales between 2012 and 2014 despite the fact that more than 24,000 houses were sold during that period.
Ruth Davison, from the National Housing Federation - which represents housing associations - said it was "the wrong solution" to the UK's housing shortage as it would benefit "some of the most securely housed people in the country on the lowest rents".
"You can no more force housing associations to sell their assets at less than they are worth than you could force Tesco to sell their assets or Cancer Research," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"Housing associations would have to be fully recompensed for any sale. There will be a cost to the taxpayer - at a conservative estimate £5.8bn".
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