Tory Progressivism Part 2

An interesting footnote to the debate over whether the Tories are or are not progressive appears with Tony Travers' analysis in the Guardian today of the Tory record in our local councils.

Our argument earlier was strategic. 'Progressivism' is not easily defined. It is both a simulacrum of the Left and an American liberal challenge to traditional conservatism - but it is also a general attitude of mind, a sense of being adaptable to the path that history seems to be taking.

We argued that progressivism in the first sense had peaked and would be a victim of the failures of its proponents at the end of this last economic cycle but that, in the second sense, it was being picked up as an 'attitude of mind' by the centre-right as a response to those same failures.

What Travers is drawing our attention to is that the tax and spending ideology of the Tory Right is being implemented by many Councils that the Tories control (they now control over half of them in the UK) regardless of the 'compassionate' rhetoric of the Party's Leader.

How do we square the radical agenda of contracting out and increased charging for services with the idea that the Tories are progressive in the sense that they are driving forward a programme of reform and modernisation that is 'of its time'?

Perhaps the key lies in the fact that Hammersmith & Fulham (where the new Tory radicalism is in full flow) is getting an improved public satisfaction measure against the trend almost everywhere else.

We might have noted that the Borough got a top performance rating from the Audit Commission but, bluntly, this is little more than a bureaucrats' seal of approval for the conduct of bureaucrats with no necessary relation to the quality of life in any locality.

It is public satisfaction that matters. Old style Tory approaches that emphasise efficiency within your means but are otherwise business as usual are challenged by this new thinking, a thinking that may quickly be translated into national policy if the radically led Councils prove to be politically sustainable.

There is a misinterpretation amongst many observers. The assumption is that Cameron has merely switched back towards the paternalism of Heath, Hume and Macmillan in reaction to the public's clear rejection of the ideological fervour of the Thatcherites.

The assumption is that we are seeing an implicit return to the 'one nation' traditions of the past and that this conservative vision might see the nation healing itself and becoming a unified culture with a working welfare state and laissez-faire attitudes to enterprise and private life.

The vision is probably an accurate one in terms of intention but the Tory Party, a coalition (as Travers points out) of centrists and radicals, has been more ruthless in dealing with its squirearchs than its radicals during the recent expenses scandal and there is a reason for this.

If the vision is conservative, the means of getting to the implementation of the vision involve the sort of radical action to build a constituency for Tory rule that would not have been alien to Peel or Disraeli.

Both were progressive in policy to conserve the nation (in their view) against economic weakness and political collapse. They brought new classes into the Tory coalition and adopted radical policies (from free trade to working class voting rights) in order to do so.

At certain points in history, the Tory Party has been more progressive than its official rivals even if the purpose of that progressivism has been to entrench privilege more firmly and fight off any truly radical challenge that might redistribute social and economic wealth or promote radical democracy.

At certain points in history, the Liberal and Labour Parties have been the conservative elements in society, either avoiding challenging policies in case they alienate elements in their unstable coalitions or because they are genuinely conserving some earlier radical settlement.

We are now at one of those paradoxical points where New Labour is trying to conserve its admittedly minimal radical settlement created by the Blair-Brown alliance and where the Tories see a radical opportunity to move forward ('progress') into a new stability that can restore their historic dominance.

This begs the question how we can call the Tory radicals in (say) Hammersmith & Fulham at all progressive ... well, of course, they are not by the narrow ideological definition we outlined in our last posting.

However, they are moving in the direction of the general will because these Tory radicals are responding dynamically to widespread despair and cynicism at the effectiveness and, bluntly, the lack of disinterestedness of a politicised State.

For a long time, the centre-left could position the State as a selfless and disinterested (if not always effective) servant of the people.

Statism took a hit with the humiliatingly self-evident sclerosis of the Soviet Union but the Blairite State has not merely proved to be less than competent at its tasks but it has been arrogant in its attitude to popular resentments and anger.

We have noted elsewhere the irritation with public interference in private lives and with cultural politics. The recession has brought private sector anger at the feather-bedding (as they see it) of a burgeoning public sector. The public would mind interference less if the State was well run and cost-effective.

The State, in short, instead of being the guarantor of a cradle-to-grave protected existence to which one has one's duty of care in times of crisis, has degenerated into an institution whose closest analogy might be to the Church at the time that Henry VIII started to direct his beady eye towards its properties.

A 'progressive' tipping point has been reached. The State cannot and has not guaranteed security nor any meaningful (merely rhetorical) equality. It appears to contribute nothing to solidarity. This leaves us with the desire for liberty to which it appears to be an active enemy.

If you are outside of the State, it looks as dodgy to the voter who is not part of the system as the late medieval Church looked to the layman. The same aspiration for what it should be is faced by increasing evidence of what it is - and yet the system can only get overturned if the turning starts from the top.

The decline of New Labour is unlikely to go further because the vested interests associated with state spending will have seen the writing on the wall and will start to cohere but these are now conservative forces, fighting against a radical desire for 'freedom' fuelled by new technologies and communications.

Local Councils are, in this sense, small test beds of just how far the rising libertarian political class can unravel the functions of the State without damaging solidarity or creating intolerable inequalities - or, indeed, creating new social order problems.

Our own view is ambivalent. The State system has failed but it need not have done and it should have been the guarantor of security, liberty and equality within a framework of solidarity. It failed and only weakly guarantees security. It works against liberty and equality. Solidarity is not even on the agenda.

When things fail and there is no sign of a reform mentality with the imagination and competence to match that, say, of Lord Turner on the City, then it becomes 'progressive' to stop trying to conserve something and to try something else instead.

Let there be no mistake here. The Tory Party is still the party of property and privilege. It is not the party of redistribution or radical community democracy. It will continue to privilege market economics and cultural tradition - but it is moving with the tide of public frustration.

The 'progressive' aspect is merely that, in the big historical context, the Tory Party, in its determination to attain and hold power and preserve traditional power and economic relations, is determined on the economic and social empowerment of individuals just when individual freedom is at a premium.

Politics is a rum game. Events may drive up New Labour's and drive down the Tory Party's ratings but a coalition of traditional paternalism and libertarian radicalism is likely to be setting the agenda for the next decade - and it will be moving with the tide of history in doing so.