Progressive Conservatism 2005-2012

David Wooding, the political editor of The Sun, said during reports of the cabinet reshuffle that for him two things were at play: firstly moves were being made in order for the Tories to be more in touch with the public, and secondly Cameron wanted to temper the rabble on his backbenches.

To be sure, it looks as though the backbenchers have finally won their battle.

The rebels were always doing damage to Cameron and acted as a constant thorn in his side. Tim Montgomerie, writing excitedly in the Guardian, noted that this indeed was the era of the Tory supercharged backbencher. Continue reading

David Cameron: not Tory enough?

What David Cameron has achieved in just two years in office should be getting the free market right more excited than Ken Livingstone’s doctor. Instead, substantial sections of his own party are subjecting him to sustained assault for the alleged insufficiency of his attachment to their dogma.

So crazed are his assailants that they seemingly accord no weight to such achievements as the completion of the necessary spadework for the privatisation of the NHS, the end of universal child benefit and the implementation of the deepest cuts in public spending since the early 1920s. Continue reading

A Nightmare Scenario

danger sign

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I accept what has rapidly become the conventional Labour wisdom: acceptance of defeat and a period of opposition to reflect on the reasons for it is in Labour’s and, if the coalition comes unstuck before too long, the country’s best interest. The alternative was also not a “progressive alliance” but, as Mark Seddon argued at Left Futures on Monday, a Lab-Lib coalition committed “to widespread and swingeing public services cuts”.

But then I had a nightmare. Continue reading