At Comment is Free today, Steve Webb MP reiterates the Liberal Democrats’ focus on redistributive policies and fairness.
He’s replying to Tim Horton’s suggestion that the Liberal Democrats have seen a “rightward shift” under Nick Clegg, at the expense of the party’s progressive credentials.
Webb responds with the £10,000 tax allowance, smarter public spending (including introducing the pupil premium and scrapping ID cards) and the Lib Dems’ fairness in politics agenda:
We have argued for an effective cap on political donations, so that no political party in Britain can be bought by sectional interests: the two old parties have, not surprisingly, resisted.
Being a progressive is partly about tax and spend, and the Lib Dems have a good story to tell. But it is also about breaking open a decaying political system which has protected vested interests for too long. Only we can do that.
You can read the full piece at the Guardian website.
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Of course, it would rather help if anyone actually understood what “left” and “right” actually meant.
I suspect that there are few in the party that believes in the “Labour theory of value” for example, but this believer is regularly excoriated for being a “Thatcherite entryist” or some such phrase by those who believe themselves to be of the “left” in this party.
No wonder the electorate is confused.
The Guardian is now mobilising soft Labour support back to the party, gunning for the Lib Dems because that is where their readers have gone.
“Being a progressive is partly about tax and spend, and the Lib Dems have a good story to tell. But it is also about breaking open a decaying political system which has protected vested interests for too long. Only we can do that.”
I dont’ think being a progressive party has to be about tax and spend – at least, not in the context it is usually deployed (more tax; more spend). One could be progressive in the redistributive sense by cutting taxes from the bottom up (like, for example, raising the personal allowance to £10,000). But would that be “from the right” (tax cutting) or “from the left” (redistributive)?
In fact, it would be neither. They mean nothing.
Oh, I think we can let the monopolistic left have the word “progressive” – after all, no real liberal would want to have anything to do with the “Progressive Movement” of the early 20th century US, with its Fabian-like eugenics and big state interventions.