Regressive Libservatism

I never thought I'd find myself writing this post.

I'm sitting in front of BBC news as it announces that Clegg and Cameron, after having already spoken on the phone, will continue talks this evening on the possibility of some kind of collaborative deal to form a functioning government.

I was among the many thousands of voters who were attracted to the Liberal Democrats as the new 'progressives', offering policies on immigration, defense and Europe that seemed far to the left of Labour. In the end I opted for Labour as I was concerned that the main party of the left should maintain a strong second place. But I engaged in endless debates with my friends and family about whether to cast a vote for the Lib Dems to support their seemingly progressive agenda. Many of those friends and family ended up opting for the Lib Dems, many of them with the objective to 'keep the Tories out'.

Why Tory opposition to a ‘jobs tax’ would reward the rich

Much has been made by the Tories of Gordon Brown’s apparent ‘jobs tax’, the proposed rise in National Insurance for people earning over 20,000. For all the genuinely progressive viewers tuning into the Leaders’ debates over the last three weeks, the consistent attacks made by Cameron on this policy, and the consistent failure of Gordon Brown to defend it, has become nothing short of infuriating.

The Tory claims that a National Insurance rise will be a tax on jobs and therefore reduce employment are not only completely without foundation, but also represent a regressive attack on a policy that is in fact one of the more progressive measures to be announced by all three Parties during the election campaign.

The Tory argument, backed up by some of the richest and most profitable businesses in the country, is that rather than place an additional burden on private business through the proposed 1% increase in National Insurance contributions, this money should rather be generated through ‘efficiency savings’ across government. A letter sent to the Telegraph by over twenty business leaders, including the likes of GlaxoSmithKline and Tullow Oil, supports Tory plans to stop the NI rise, arguing that it is in the interest of ‘protecting jobs’.

D.I.Y services

With twenty one days to go until the General Election, the party manifestos have been launched. Among the manifestos of the major parties, the Conservative ‘Invitation to join the Government of Great Britain’ stands out. It is not just the arresting presentation (a hardback blue book that looks a bit like a bible…) that has captured attention, but the claims within it. ‘There is such a thing as society; it’s just not the same thing as the state’, David Cameron proudly soundbites. The Conservative manifesto claims this as the new ideological heart of Conservativism – a vision of a Big Society in which citizens are given the power to govern themselves.

But a closer inspection of Conservative policy and the ideas that Cameron espouses tells a different story: this is not actually a radical or a progressive manifesto but an aggressively and regressively conservative one. It invites further privatisation of public services, will create massive variation in standards of education and healthcare provision and will deepen the chasm between the people and the state.

Why the Conservatives are regressive, not progressive

David Cameron and his Conservative Party have launched to success in the past year through an apparent re-brand of traditional conservatism and the 'nasty party'. Away with 'there's no such thing as society', in with 'the big society', away with conservative values with a small 'c', in with the party of the 'radicals'. Forget about the Tory belief in 'every man for himself' - now they're the 'progressive' party, upholding the rights of the poor and fighting for a more equal society. So convincing has their change of heart been, that even the formerly progressive think-tank Demos has set up an entire programme dedicated to the quest of 'progressive conservatism'.

There's just one small problem: the Tories are not progressive. Quite aside from the fact that the very notion of progressive conservatism is an oxy-moron akin to 'wealthy poverty', one only has to dig a few milimetres beneath the surface to see that their apparent upholding of progressive values represents a monumental display of double-speak that even Orwell would have been hard-pushed to satirize. That they have been propelled into the lead in the polls on the back of emotive language such as 'the big society', 'progressive' and 'radical' shows that there is a heartening appetite in the population for these genuinely left-wing and social democratic values. But we should be under no illusion that the Tory Party will deliver such a vision - the reality of the Tory party plans is the polar opposite.