Tory Story
by Jonty Olliff-Cooper
12/08/09 Jonty Olliff-Cooper asks just how progressive George Osborne's speech to Demos was.
Eight out of ten. That is what I would give George Osborne for his speech today on progressive conservatism today at Demos.
Much of the speech was spot on. For one thing, Osborne emphasized his commitment to progressive values throughout. This is no small thing, as today’s headlines recognize. now, progressive is a rather over used and under defined word, but George certainly spoke about the right things, declaring that he was “championing the progressive ideas that will take power away from bureaucracies and politicians and give it to the people”. That is rhetoric of course – many people will believe it when they see it - but the right words are all one can reasonably expect from a speech, and Osborne said them.
Secondly, Osborne took every opportunity to talk about the need for structural reform. Thank goodness. We desperately need a serious rethink of the way government operates. George mentioned Canada and Sweden, both of which undertook root and branch reform in the depths of their recessions in the early nineties. Not everyone agreed. When asked about if a recession was really the right time for reform, given the up front costs, Osborne was emphatic: a Cameron government will be a reforming government.
What was most significant here was that Osborne put innovation and reform ahead of cuts or efficiency. Innovation experts talk of the ‘ICE’ equation for solving budget holes: innovation, cuts, and efficiencies. As the questions from the floor demonstrated, the media is obsessed with cuts. The government by contrast is putting its faith in efficiencies.
Both are mistaken. There are few obvious targets to cut completely, and they are nothing like big enough. Efficiencies are of course sensible, but very often they result in cutting the programmes that are easiest to cut, not the ones that are most wasteful. Moreover, rash efficiencies can just drive costs elsewhere onto another ministry’s budget, saving little for the taxpayer.
Serious commentators understand that the point is not if we should have efficiency drives or not – of course we all want lean government. It is that they should not be needed in the first place. Our present system of government accretes waste over time because it is poorly designed and opaque. We need route and branch reform to create government that hunts down inefficiency on its own, not because Gershon tells it to.
The Conservatives get this, and have a partial picture of how to get there. George mentioned data transparency, direct election of mayors and police chiefs, and independent ‘Swedish schools’ for example. However, examples are sparse. At the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos, we are developing bold ideas to take the progressive direction George Osborne outlined today on the shape of the state further, deeper and faster.
Demos’ Leading from the Front project is examining how the most cutting edge businesses like Google, Innocent, Semco and Gore-Tex have reshaped themselves to do without top down targets, making work both more efficient and more rewarding. Our ageing project On Your Side is looking at the success of pilots in Gloucestershire which provide a better service to older people and slash care costs, by providing local facilitators who can tie help together. We believe Michael Gove should extend his pro-poor school voucher system to SureStart, business support, higher education, and even pensions. This autumn we are publishing new proposals to free all government non-personal data, expand the Freedom of Information Act, and embrace crowd sourcing. Please get in touch if you would like to know more.
The speech’s one weakness was that it was not clear enough about why all this is conservative. Arguable much of what George discussed would be common to intellectuals in all parties. However, this is not because Osborne was stealing Labour policies. Rather, since the turn of the millennium, the most subtle thinkers on the Left have increasingly adopted classically conservative positions stressing the importance of localism, community, capabilities, choice, and decentralisation.
Yesterday Osborne made a good start. The Tories have a golden opportunity to transform government and society. Take it George.
Dave
If they really wanted to save money they could start by removing the annual 13k per head of population subsidy to the arms industry. Just a thought...
Jonty Olliff-Cooper
Thank you for your comments guys.
Mike,
I think the idea is to push that money down more locally to local authorities and voluntary economic partnerships. Would that not maintain the recycling effect you point to? And is it not also a question of how they spend the money?
Jessica
I agree that the word 'progressive' is underdefined, however it is a word commonly associated with left-of-centre political thought - not exactly the terrain of the Conservatives (to conserve vs. to progress - a clear linguistic distinction if nothing else). Unless they are trying to capture some of that left-of-centre ground pre-election…
"the progressive ideas that will take power away from bureaucracies and politicians and give it to the people"
Let’s break down this ‘politician rhetoric’ a little bit:
‘take power away from the bureacracies and politicians’: small government
‘give it to the people’: laissez-faire… free-market economics.
Nothing exactly progressing beyond classical Conservatism it seems to me. All this highlights is George Osborne/the Tories hijacking the generalised, positive understanding of 'progressive' politics to make it fit classically Conservative goals with the intention of giving them a better public image.
Chris
A so-so speech in my opinion. At least he didn't use the 'P word'.
Jessica has already pointed out, above, how much of it was essentially same-old-Tories.
Large parts echoed of the new public management, government-by-contract and Citizen's Charter initiatives of the 80's and 90's. They would have been Tory policy regardless of the economic climate.
But in the democratic/political dimension I think the Conservatives are certainly the most progressive of the Big Three. Their ideas are hardly revolutionary but at least they're having some. The Lib Dems are pushing the same cliched reforms that they have for countless years, while Brown and Labour wouldn't know a good idea if it hit them over the head.
Open primaries, for instance, are hardly a new idea but as far as I'm aware they're the only party doing them. They might be purely for show but at least they're making an effort.
I was particularly struck by David Cameron's open call for prospective Parliamentary candidates on the Andrew Marr show a few months back. I don't think it's a viable long-term strategy and I don't know if the party would actually follow through with its promise, but it's exactly the kind of thing that parties need to be doing now to restore belief in and improve the political system.
I disagree with the Tories on too many fundamental issues to consider voting for them, but the fact that I didn't collapse in a fit of laughter when reading George Osborne's assertion that they are the progressive force in British politics shows that I think they're moving in the right direction.
Andrew Preston
Google isn't cutting edge, it's essentially a one trick pony. Innocent isn't cutting edge, its a straightforward lifestyle business, any intelligent person just eats plenty of fruit... Smoothies ? Yak.
In my opinion, much of the reforms being electorally mentioned by the Conservatives will be accidently mislaid if they get into power.
They really are the same old, same old, group of Old Etonians. The real reforms needed in this country are the ones which address that particular area, the parachuting of candidates into safe seats, and ultimately the end of this hackneyed and outdated party system.
rgds
Andrew
Fayyaz Muneer
Conserve and progress are not antonyms. The opposite of conserve could reasonably be argued to be expel or expend. Progress is, I think, more accurately reversed by a term like inertia.
Clinging to a linguistic distinction to criticise the Tories is a dubious plan at the best of times. It suggests that words aren't allowed to move outside narrow definitions, and a quick glance at the front bench of the "Labour" party suggests few career trade unionists and proud members of the working class and more a large amount of Oxbridge types. Not that that's a problem. But thinking that the Conservatives are incapable of being progressives, whatever that means, on a linguistic point is dubious.
It's even more dubious when the linguistic point is itself questionable.
Jonty Olliff-Cooper
Andrew, have you read http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/resuscitating-democracy?
Andrew Preston
Yes, I have ... it's the approximate equivalent of one of those late nineteenth century political pamphlets that would be thrust at you in the street by some greasy party hack.
Your suggestions are mostly a combination of additional complexities at Westminster, moving chairs around a table, and what you call localism is a recipe for American-style local political corruption. But then again your party isn't actually interested in real democracy.
What interests you is getting into power.
Robert
I love it, Thanks for your comments Guys, yes a working class lass talking about the Tories .
Handing power to me would be a definate bad thing, I'd shoot Hannan then Blair lock Brown up for being an Idiot, then I turn my attention to nutters who tell lies to win elections.
robert
Or even working class lads, bad mistake gun to head...
v st clair
My local community is about to have a voluntary economic partnership between the local authority and a major UK landlowner thrust upon it. Because the two have got together to make public realm 'improvements' we will not benefit from the government's supposed commitment to improving local democracy. The latter only applies to planning, regeneration and schemes for areas that have specific predefined designations. Our local environment and the 'liveablity' of our homes will suffer, but the interests of those who make profit from property and retailers have priority. One of my neighbours calls it 'neo-feudalism'. Hardly progressive.
Mike
Let's be clear that redistributing power from politicians to consumers and producers is very different to redistributing power to citizens in co-operative processes.
Cutting the RDAs would be madness, particularly in recession. They generate £4.50 in the local economy for every £1 spent. It's just Tory free market madness that makes them ideological about the means, instead of the ends.