Mary Fitzgerald
"Progressive Conservatism"—or just a Con?
As promised, today Catherine Fieschi, former director of Demos, hits back at Phillip Blond’s call for “progressive conservatism.” It’s an ideological con, she says; one which creates an illusion of contradiction while in fact “smuggling in a notion of progress that would sit very well with 18th century industrialists.” With the financial crisis and oncoming recession, we are experiencing a time of fear and doubt. But this does not mean we should buy into a distorted fiction—the type of which Rousseau would certainly have disapproved of.
As many Prospect readers will be aware, Phillip Blond’s cover story has provoked argument from all quarters: yesterday, Rupert Darwall accused him of failing to understand how markets operate; on Monday Kieron O’Hara accused him of misreading Adam Smith. Tomorrow, Civitas director David Green will argue that Blond is “grossly mistaken” in some of the characteristics he attributes to liberalism.
So is Red Toryism, as Fieschi suggests, nothing more than “vote-seeking fancy dress”? Or are his critics missing the point? Weigh in here.
Mary Fitzgerald
Maggie's had a makeover
The spectacle of British politicians of every creed scrambling to associate themselves with President Obama this week may have been amusing, yet, writing in the Evening Standard today, Andrew Gilligan detects genuine Obama-like trends emerging within British politics. Now, as never before, he says, both left and right are vying for the true mantle of “progressiveness.”
Perhaps this is because someone gave Gilligan a sneak preview of the forthcoming issue of Prospect, in which Phillip Blond, director of Demos’s new “Progressive Conservatism” project, lays out a bold new vision for Toryism. Blond calls on Cameron to lead a massive redistribution of power and wealth, to restore Britain’s “lost” civil society and local pride, to break up monopolies, protect small businesses and promote microfinance and self-improvement for the poor.
If this sounds radical and distinctly un-Thatcherite, it’s because it is. But, Blond points out, as late as August 2008 David Cameron was promising to be “as radical a social reformer as Margaret Thatcher was an economic reformer.â€
With New Labour politically bankrupt and reeling from the ongoing financial crisis, this is the ideal moment for Cameron to make good on this pledge. Read Blond’s article in full in the new issue of Prospect, available in shops and online on Thursday 29th January.
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