Progressive Conservatism

Progressive conservatism has been in the news recently. The linking of conservatism with the idea of progress has been made before but as we head towards a potential Cameron government the media is looking closely at the characteristics of, what Cameron calls, liberal conservatism.

The conservative political philosophy is usually associated with tradition, not progress. So it seems odd that members of the Conservative party, Tories, would claim the mantle of progress.

A cynic might think this is all about reclaiming the change narrative from New Labour. By saying you are a movement of progress you are taking the territory of the future and offering optimism. As Labour and the Liberal Democrats like to think that they are the progressive parties, the Conservatives were inevitably cast as the opposite: reactionaries. Progressive conservatism counters that.

Many Conservatives, including Dan Hannon, claim Edmund Burke as the grandfather of the movement. In a recent speech Hannon also said that the Founding Fathers of America were conservatives.

Burke was a Whig and never called himself a Tory. The American Revolution was more a Whig revolution than a conservative one. Burke, like Tom Paine, supported the American and the French revolt. Burke quickly realised what was happening in France and warned against it.

That doesn't mean that conservatives were not inspired by Burke's ideas as they were by Adam Smith. Many Whigs later went on to join the Conservative party while others formed the Liberal party with radicals like John Stuart Mill.

Burke may have been a small 'c' conservative but he was a liberal too. What is clear is that an element of liberalism undoubtedly found itself in the Conservative party. One can make the case that the tradition of progress has always been there.

With the Premiership of Disraeli, the Conservative party become the 'One Nation' party and legislated for social reform.

In the twentieth century, the Conservative party's strength was to accept the consensus and govern from the centre. This is why it was so successful at winning elections.

Its break with consensus was when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. A devotee of Hayek, Thatcher challenged the status quo. She was described as a 19th century liberal by some as she privatised nationalised industries and oversaw internal markets in health and education.

But as Simon Jenkins makes clear in 'Thatcher and Sons', while the Thatcher Government moved towards a smaller state it also centralised power more than ever before. The autonomy that the NHS and schools had was gone.

Depending where you sit in the political map will determine whether you see these policies as progressive or not.

Now we have Jesse Norman and Phillip Blonde developing a progressive conservative philosophy.

This new approach is summed up by a Conservative candidate, Emma McClarkin on her website:

The Conservative party is the party of progress and opportunity and we need to tell people that they can be part of their destiny and affect their own future.

Delete Conservative and insert Whig or Liberal and it wouldn't sound out of place.

If Cameron has taken the Conservatives towards liberalism, what does this mean for the Liberal Democrats? Is it an opportunity for the party or a threat?

What does it mean for those Tories keener on social conservatism?

We will only know if Cameron walks into Number 10.

Why the poor choose to pay for health and education

There is a fascinating article in today's FT by Tim Harford on why the poor pay for services even when they are offered free by the State.

It is food for thought given the recent arguments over the NHS.

Labour goes on the offensive

Peter Mandelson recently said that the Labour party are now the underdogs. He certainly set out to prove that in a Today programme interview where he attacked Conservative party proposals on the economy, without saying what his party would do.

This is the sort of tactic that an opposition party employs and not one for the governing party.

Ministers' who have been on television talking about the financial crisis have been making the point that things would be even worse if David Cameron was Prime Minister.

The Labour narrative seems to be: yes things are tough now and we might not have got everything right but they would be far worse if the other lot gets in.

The question is, will the voters buy the pitch?

The NHS: can you love, or hate, an institution?

There has been a Twitter war this week over the NHS. The level of debate on both sides of the Atlantic appeared to be more knee-jerk reactions that thought out positions.

Then again, Drew Weston made the point in his book The Political Brain, that politics is about emotion and we certainly saw a huge about of outpouring for and against the National Health Service and reform of the US health care system.

It strikes me that there is no reason why one cannot admire something like the NHS as well as wanting to see another system. After all, there are other models for providing health provision. The key is to work out what you want and then decide the best way for it to be delivered.

Crucially, the NHS, like the other models, has strengths and weaknesses.

This weekend I have seen a series of pieces that have been more measured.

Here are a few of them:

Nicholas Timmins in the FT takes the heat out of the debate

Dizzy thinks tackles the knee-jerk reaction although asks for 'morons' to grow up

Charlotte Gore talks about why we need health care provision and how it can be delivered

And Guido Fawkes points out that Obama has come out against socialised medicine...

US healthcare: only Nixon could go to China

The reform of the US health care system has hit the UK headlines this week. On our TV screens, very angry Americans have been attacking Democrats about the proposals.

Not being in the USA, it is hard to know exactly what is going on. After all, the Republicans agree with Obama: the way America needs to do health care has to change.

Obama decided to avoid imposing a scheme on Congress but instead asked them to develop a policy that had cross-party support.

Are some Republicans playing politics? Or are grassroots conservative groups whipping up the frenzy? Perhaps people are genuinely concerned about change. The latter is ironic given that change was the Obama manifesto.

From an outsider's point of view it looks as though Americans just don't trust Democrats to reform a market-based system.

Would McCain have had so much trouble making changes, especially with VP Palin by his side?

McCain didn't win but perhaps Obama should have asked McCain or another prominent Republican to bring proposals to Congress.

After all, only the Republican Richard Nixon could go to China, a Democrat would never have got away with it.

Analysis of political party websites by Rob Fenwick

An excellent post that is well worth reading - Who do they think they are talking to?

Niall Ferguson: An evolutionary approach to financial history

Comment policy

Up until today, I have allowed people to post comments on this blog without any moderation.

I have occasionally removed comments when they are clearly selling a product.

Today a comment was posted that was a combination of disturbing and odd. It certainly broke the rules of being legal, decent, honest and truthful.

I have no idea who the author is and why he made the claims he did.

I do not like to censor anyone but the comments, now deleted, were inappropriate.

I have now instituted a moderation policy and will only post comments that I consider legal, decent, honest and truthful.

John Stuart Mill by Barry Stocker

Barry Stocker has written a piece on John Stuart Mill that is well worth reading.

As he says, Mill is claimed by socialists and conservatives as well as liberals.

Near the end of his life, Mill did say he thought of himself as a socialist and donated money to the Labour movement.

But On Liberty, the subject of Stocker's post is a statement of liberalism.

One can argue about what Mill meant by socialism. He favoured co-ops but then again so do some Conservatives.

What he never wavered from was the importance of the individual being able to develop as they wish. The only way this was possible as far as Mill was concerned was in a society characterised by plurality, diversity and tolerance.

The fact that socialists and conservatives have taken on board some of this thinking is natural. Good ideas are not self-contained. They develop and merge with other ideas. Mill would have welcomed that.

The borrowing of ideas does lead to intellectual or ideological confusion.

Jesse Norman claims his form of conservatism can save the Left; Obama is described as a socialist and some Labour politicians as Tories.

'What Price Liberty' by Ben Wilson

I am halfway through Ben Wilson's excellent book, What Price Liberty?

It is subtitled: How freedom was won and is being lost.

Given that subtitle, you might think that it is a rant against authority but it is a considered history of British liberty and British economic and political development.

What Wilson does so well is explain how liberty has been seen through the ages and why it flourished and then declined.

It is a story of compromise: with authority and with competing political ideas. Wilson shows that liberty has been championed by politicians of all political parties and disregarded by them too.

This blog has not been airbrushed

The recent policy paper on women received a lot of media and blog attention. It even got Jo Swinson on Channel 4 News.

I must admit to not having read the paper but am reliably informed that it has more to it than a call to warn people about the perils of airbrushing adverts and posters.

While some will see the story as part of the August silly season, it does give liberals an opportunity to discuss what sort of liberal society they are after.

There are some in the liberal family who will say that governments should do nothing, that advertisers and photographers alter images and should be allowed to do so.

Clearly, Jo Swinson and her team had other ideas. They argue that the truth is being distorted and people should be told. From what I understand they would take a harsher stance with ads aimed at children: for these ads they would outlaw 'airbrushing' all together.

There are times when one wants government to step in and warn people about something. The recent FT piece on swine flu remedies illustrates the point. If someone thinks that a remedy will cure them and goes on to spread the virus they are breaking John Stuart Mill's harm edict.

Putting aside the technical difficulties of defining when something is altered and when a change distorts the truth, the policy paper says something about how the authors see liberalism and individuals.

By placing a warning on a picture, the authors are arming individuals with information so that the individual can make their own mind up. There is a liberal logic to this, although it is a bit of a sticking plaster solution.

One of the difficulties of the sticking plaster approach is that you have to keep putting the sticker plasters in lots of places to sort the problems out as they arise. You are asking for a vigilant liberal state that must make judgements about truth, what is best for people and what information they need to know. How quickly would that liberal state become something less liberal?

The libertarian option would be to let people find out for themselves by trial and error. You are told in an advert that a product will do x, you buy it and discover it doesn't live up to the claims and you stop buying it. And you can always complain to the Advertising Standards Authority, if in a libertarian society that organisation still existed.

This approach was not going to satisfy Jo Swinson and others.

There is another way of thinking about this.

If we believe that people are conned by the information they receive, why not go to the root cause and ensure that people are free enough to think for themselves? On C4 News, Jo did mention that children should be taught about advertising in schools but this strikes me as a rather narrow approach.

Surely it is better to encourage independence of thought and a questioning mind? Then people can decide what they make of the ads (which is very libertarian) but they will have been helped by the way they have been educated (very John Stuart Mill).

The result could be that people are still taken in. Then again, making mistakes is part and parcel of development.

This does mean that government has a role to play: Mill argued education should be compulsory but provided privately.

In the end, people may still act in ways that some in the liberal family disapprove of. But in liberalism, what matters is how they get to the decision.