Osborne makes progress

Andrew K

Has James Naughtie caught swine flu? He seemed to be spluttering through much of Today's interview with George Osborne.

ken from glos

"progressive " is just another word for "socialist"

TGF UKIP

Would you like to try selling Gove and Fraser's swedish fetish on the doorsteps, Pete? If the Tories do try it, their humiliating withdrawal will swiftly follow.

And I wouldn't get too worked up about Boy George either if I were you. Isn't he being investigated over his mortgage scams?

I can quite easily see Martin Bell, or another lad or lass in a white suit, stepping in again at Tatton and with the help of UKIP taking the real conservative votes, he or she could very well put paid to the sleazy, snidey arrogant shit once and for all.

Vulture

'Progressive' is a cant word for 'left-wing'. Oiky's interview with Naughtie was ludicrous, even by the low standards of these two clowns. Naughtie was his usual spluttering, pompous, Liebour apologist self, while Oiky was obviously on orders from Dave to pop the 'P' word as often as he could. As usual Oiky, never the sharpest knife in the Tory cabinet, overdid it - I coulnted at least half a dozen Ps. The whole point abt 'Progressive politics' is that it has brought about the hell we are currently enduring. If you want an apt symbol of Progressive politics in the news today it is not Oiky's embarrassing performance - it is the Baby P. case. That says it all about the 'Progressive' agenda. And the fact that Dave espouses such a buzz word tells you all you need to know about him and his uselesssness. True Tory Conservatism is the antithesis of 'Progressive'.

Walsingham's Ghost

@ Andrew K

No, it is simply part of 'basic training' in media training courses - always use any means possible to disturb the interviewee's 'flow'. Labour's most supportive commentator was simply going back to basics during the Osborne interview...

Don

TGF UKIP, Another well thought out post. We are so fortunate to have your devastating insight to the political climate of the UK. It is a must read for the Tories. They could never have climbed to double digit leads in the polls without such laser sharp comments from political giants such as yourself.

BrianSJ

I take it that this 'progressive' stance and the use of Demos is to make sure that a neo-Blairite resurgance of New Labour is aborted, rather than a serious policy position. If so, I suspect it is an over-reaction, and the UKIP threat on the right ought to be of more concern.

Pete Hoskin

TGF: I see what you mean re. the "Swedish fetish," and normally I agree with you that the Tories could (and should) be much better in "selling" their policies - so Joe Public actually knows what they are.

But I think Gove's actually packaging it all quite well now. It's well worth reading the interviews with him that I link to above. Suddenly, it all sounds a bit less wonkish, and a bit more voter-friendly - to these ears, at least!

TrevorsDen

TGF UKIP is yet again up to his self serving tricks. Support for him and UKIP would simply shoehorn us into another 5 years of Labour 'regressive' policies.
This policy -
"It's the bureaucratic system in our own country which disproportionately favours the wealthy by allowing selection through house price. We believe that a system based on challenging complacent monopolies would give poorer parents better opportunities. New providers would naturally want to open up in areas where the parents are desperate for better schools. Areas like predominantly working-class Lewisham, where half of parents say they aren't happy with the choice of secondaries."
- is the opposite of socialism and, since it challenges the current orthodoxy by offering something new, it is clearly progressive.

Other happy go lucky assaults on the word progressive are just the usual knee jerk unthinking reactions of the Heffer wing of the Conservatives. Well people like Heffer and his pea brained followers call themselves Conservatives but I doubt that any Conservative government have ever pursued policies they espouse and no British electorate would ever vote for them.

There is nothing wrong with the word progressive and it is good to see Conservatives claiming the word. It is infantile to say that only socialists can be progressive. Throwing out the current socialist top down controlled mess (for instance by giving patients the control over their own medical records) is the opposite of socialism and can be proudly called progressive.

For Vulture to equate Baby P with any sort of Conservative policy is plain disgusting.
But his post is full of such utter gibberish that we should not be surprised. How on earth can true conservative policies be said to be the opposite of progressive. Thatchers Trade Union legislation - overturning a century of complacency was the most progressive piece of legislation since the war.

Chuck Unsworth

@ TGF UKIP

"the sleazy, snidey arrogant shit"

How would you know?

Frank P

I see a real peach from the Speccie Neologism Dept. today: Purnellite!

As somebody expostulated hereupon the other day - "Christ on a bicycle!"

The Purnellite Wing! I hope they have a prayer to go with it; cue the Dambusters March, ffs! With a bit of luck it will go down without trace somewhere off Dogger Bank (appropriately enough - if you are Cockney).

I've seen politics go through some crazy patches in my time but this 'noughties' era has really sunk to previously unplumbed depths.

Philip Walker

The point about progressive politics is that many of the people who adhere to it don't see it as being about control: they happen to be wedded to the idea of control because they think it's the best way to get to their goals, which is what they think being progressive is all about. Surprisingly enough, those goals are good goals: giving people the opportunities to make the most of their life, encouraging individual freedom and responsibility, that sort of thing.

The Tories are doing a good thing in point out that those goals will only follow from truly liberal (i.e., Tory) ideas and methods.

Charlie

For all those parents who despair over the local comprehensive and cannot or will not afford school fees; who will they trust more to improve the state sector, Gove of Balls? Gove's policy on schools may be as persuasive to the aspirational class as the sale of council homes. National debt is somewhat a distant concept compared to one's children suffering appalling education, made worse by bullying.Balls comes across as bombastic class war bully. Gove as someone who is reasonable, emphatic with the concerns of many parents and willing to do whatever it takes to improve their childrens education.

old fogey

I remember some years ago when Blair, or Brown, was about to make a speech from the City( I think) he was introduced with the endorsement ; "ladies and gentlemen, I give you ptrogessive governance". Now I felt a bit sorry for the attendant--after all he was probably used to associating with respectable bankers and proper, grown up politicians. But it was the absurdity of the term "progressive" that made me want to vomit, for i have always suspected that the term was adopted, not from its link with modern taxation, but from the association with overloud and overlong pop music which I recall, with a shudder, from my teenage years. I think that the perenially immature Blair, who seemed obsessed then with popular culture, dreamt up the term with those precise associations, in his attempt to our first "rock star" premier.

oldtimer

I must confess I do not know what the word progressive is meant to mean or convey. For myself a little backwards politics would do just fine - such as back to sound money and back to simpler, lower taxation would be a good start.

My suspicion is that this is a little local war of politics - about who appropriates what language. What really matters, and what will matter, is action which speaks, and will speak, louder than words.

Pete Hoskin

Frank P: not one of my own creation, but - you're right - a pretty dreadful example of Westminster speak nonetheless. I apologise.

Coeur de Lion

I thought Osborne was rather good on 'Today' today. Got his points over. And I love the theft of the lefty word 'progressive'. Perhaps we'll see 'contradiction' next? (As in "The contradictions within the capitalist system etc etc")

Publius

Unless you define what your end-point is, then any talk of progress is utterly meaningless.

For the Left, "progressive" seems to be vaguely linked to "equality". But since they don't define what they mean by equality either, both terms just float about, meaning nothing.

It seems "progressive" has just become a rather lefty-feelgood word for "good". The Tories should abandon the silly vague term and instead say what they mean. If they think some policy ought to be pursued because it is good, then they should say so, and say why it is good.

Adopting the debased Newspeak of the clapped-out Left is pointless, and self-defeating.

Verity

What Vulture said.

Don - It's sweet that The Speccie does not discriminate against Fourth Formers majoring in sarcasm.

Trevorsden is, as he is so often, inattentive. It has been mentioned many times that TGI UKIP is NOT associated with UKIP.

Vulture

@Trevors Den

For a person who calls themselves a Tory, Trev, You are very apt to spray your opponents with coarse insults - 'pea brained'; 'disgusting' and 'gibberish' being the latest. This usually means that the user of such terms has no coherent arguments. I fail to see anything remotely 'disgusting' in directly correlating the appalling fate of Baby P. with the 'Progressive' agenda applied by the current Govt. and now being mindlessly aped by Dave and Boy George in an effort to snare the Guardianista vote. Indeed, the two are directly and inextricably linked. The cold fact is - which you may not appreciate in your ivory tower - that a large chunk of what used to be called the working class are now living in conditions of state-subsidised sub-human squalor in which cases like that of Baby P. are becoming more and more commonplace, and are, indeed inevitable.

I have myself written an official report for the NSPCC on such deaths; and my partner is still involved in, as she puts it 'Trying to stop people from murdering their children'. Its an uphill struggle, made all the harder for the bien pensant efforts of you and your ilk. My parter is, or was, your typical Liberal. Or better said, 'Progressive'.She now firmly believes, as the result of harsh experience, that the choice before us lies between a harsh and draconian State - possibly an Islamic one - that will apply a distinctly illiberal, un-Progressive penal code, or escalating anarchy, crime and the bestiality exemplified by the Baby P. trio.

You deride Simon Heffer for holding views of a traditionally Tory nature, and suggest that no-one would vote for them. I disagree, Trev : I believe that most people, given the opportunity to do so, would support a Hefferite programme to the hilt: death penalty, low taxes, and slashing benefits to the workshy and the criminal just for starters. There was, not too long ago, just such a Government, led by Margaret Thatcher. It won three general elections.

You are clearly no Conservative, and you claim to hate Liebour. May I suggest, therefore, that you get in touch with the LIbDems as you are really a Cleggie.

George Laird

Dear All

Is there anyone daft enough to think that George Osborne cares about poor people?

George Osborne!

Poor people!

Cares!

Some people are trying to sell that joke too hard.

I had someone from the Tory Centre for social justice turn up on my website, so I visited theirs and guess what?

Their advisory board, it is rich people who once a year turn up to have a discussion on poverty and the poor.

In the people section it is middle class uni graduates who possibly experienced contact with the working class during their student days at Oxford et al in the pubs.

Okay yaa!!!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Publius

George Laird. Leaving aside the fatuousness of "caring" as a political virtue, I think you will find, when you grow up a little, that you do not need to be poor to care about the poor.

TGF UKIP

Chuck Unsworth, "sleazy, snidey arrogant"?

1) "Sleazy" - mortgage scam, £500k "office contribution" from the City inadequately declared inadequately, £5k speaking fee from Channel Island accountants backpocketed in direct contravention of Tory Party rules.

2) "Snidey" - do you have a better word for a man who repeats to the Press a holiday lunchtime conversation with a fellow pol.

3) "Arrogant" - I'll take the word of THX1138 (regrettably absent from the CH these days) who has actually met him.

As I've posted before, television can hide the essential personality of some politicians, but not Osborne. It magnifies them.

Next time he's on the box, take a good look and ask yourself if he's the sort of man you would choose to accompany you into the jungle.

Jonathan Cook

I can see that capturing the "progressive" flag from Labour will get on Gordon's tits...... (which is a good thing)...

The problem is that the term "progressive" means nothing to me or the man on the street. It is just a phrase that is fought over by policy wonks.

Athesius the Facilitator

George Laird-Somebody who is so well edjimucated as yourself should be aware that some of the richest and most powerful people in this country have also been the most generous and philanthropic. Cadbury, Bournville, Laing, Carnegie, Worsley, Finnegan and Bessemer to name just a few. So who's to say if Osborne does or doesn't care. You don't know what he is as a person or what he will be like as a chancellor so why not stop being so damn pompous. I am aware that your only motive on this site is to make people "bite" but you do it at the expense of sounding stupid.

Do you know what a "bomb burst" is in armed forces parlance George. It's when someone like you walks in to the local pub and everyone else walks out.

Hysteria

rather than guessing - here is the wikipedia definition (part of)

Progressivism is a political and social term that refers to ideologies and movements favoring or advocating changes or reform, usually in a statist or egalitarian direction for economic policies (government management) and liberal direction for social policies (personal choice). Progressivism is often viewed in opposition to conservative ideologies.

In the United States, the term progressivism emerged in the late 19th century into the 20th century in reference to a more general response to the vast changes brought by industrialization: an alternative to both the traditional conservative response to social and economic issues and to the various more radical streams of socialism and anarchism which opposed them. Political parties, such as the Progressive Party, organized at the start of the 20th century, and progressivism made great strides under American presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson.[1]

Despite being associated with left-wing politics, the term "progressive" has also been used by groups not particularly left-wing. The Progressive Democrats of Ireland have taken the name "progressivism" despite being considered right-wing. The European Progressive Democrats was a mainly heterogeneous political group in the European Union.