Is Cameron playing fast and loose with words?

David Cameron is nothing if not audacious. He is after all, the Conservative leader who set out to be the "heir to Blair," who tried to steal the Lib Dems' long-held mantle as the party of the environment, and who even attempted to convince us that the Tories are now the party that cares most about "society."

So it should come as no great surprise that Mr Cameron, in his call for a Tory-Lib alliance to topple Gordon Brown, is now trying to purloin the label "progressive," which has, in British politics at least, traditionally belonged to the centre-left.

I seem to recall there was some discussion about using the word "progressive" in the title of the Liberal Conspiracy blog, but the common consensus was that it's a word that's more readily abused even than "liberal." If so, Mr Cameron's initiative seems to show we probably made the right decision.

Dictionary definitions are no great help. Among those listed by the Free Dictionary are:

Moving forward; advancing.

Proceeding in steps; continuing steadily by increments: progressive change.

Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods: a progressive politician; progressive business leadership.

By this token, "progressive" is about as meaningful as that irritating and vacuous piece of management consultancy jargon that is now heard in offices up and down the land - "going forward."

The dictionary also lists a specific definition for "progressive" in the context of taxation, namely:

A tax that takes a larger percentage from the income of high-income people than it does from low-income people.

This is more helpful in terms of defining a centre-left agenda, but then again David Cameron probably claims he believes in this as well, in the sense that we already have a progressive taxation system, and he isn't seeking to make it any less progressive.

Is progressive a word worth fighting over - or should its definition forthwith be restricted to a form of rock music involving long guitar solos, mellotrons and metaphysical imagery?

Cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy.

Kylie in X-factor fix

I'm glad I'm not the only political blogger who watched the X-Factor, and I agree that young Leon Jackson probably couldn't lose after a skimpily-dressed Kylie Minogue took to the stage to duet with him in a smooth jazz version of her summer 1990 classic Better the Devil You Know.

Meanwhile, here (according to a poster on runner-up Rhydian Roberts' fan blog) is how the conversation between Kylie and X-factor judge sister Dannii might have gone....

Dannii: "Kylie we want you to sing with Leon"
Kylie: "Isn't he the one that you said almost wets himself on stage and sings flat?"
Dannii: "Yes, but...well Simon says he can do something with my career if you agree"
Kylie:" Hmmm"
Dannii: "Oh, and don't bother with clothing, just wear your underwear"

Spot on, Sir John

Sir John Major is spot-on with his comments about the difference between Tory sleaze in the 1990s and Labour sleaze now. And rather than bluster on about how useless a Prime Minister Major was, Labour people ought to have the good grace to accept it.

Dr Crippen "not dead" shock

Over the past couple of years, one of the best and most informative blogs around has been NHS Blog Doctor, written by an anonymous GP who styled himself Dr John Crippen.

Unfortunately Dr Crippen had a long break over the summer and has not posted anything since October 17, which was understandably the cause of some perplexity among his regular readers.

Earlier this week, someone purporting to be a colleague at his workplace left the following comment:

I am a senior partner at 'John's practice, I have only become aware of this 'weblog' after accessing his email account through our internal system. Other partners have read this website, but none of us knew who the author was - although in retrospect there are a number of clues we could have picked up on!

There is no easy way to say this, but the doctor known as 'John' or 'Crippen' passed away in a road traffic accident mid-October. Although I appreciate the esteem in which many of you obviously held him, I must ask that the emails cease as of now - they are all redirected to our mail server and this is causing some difficulty.

Dr. Crippen's identity may no longer need to be secret for his own purposes, but out of respect for his family and remaining colleagues I shall not be sharing this here, neither will I post another message or reply to any left. This webblog will be removed once I can circumnavigate the security protocols for obvious reasons of confidentiality.

This said, I thank all who visit here for their support of our dear, and much missed colleague.

Kind regards, Dr.P.

I thought this comment was exceedingly odd, not least because the bit about deleting the blog and "circumnavigating security protocols" sounded more like the work of a censorious saboteur than someone genuinely concerned to protect "confidentaility."

Subsequent investigations by myself and a number of other bloggers revealed there had been no road accidents reported anywhere in the UK between 17-31 October involving the death of any GPs.

The esteemed swearblogger Devil's Kitchen now claims to have proof that Dr Crippen is not dead, just that he has had enough of blogging for the time being.

If that is so then I'm glad he's still with us - but if he has indeed given up blogging it's a sad loss to the 'sphere.

The real scandal of the New Labour years

Harold Wilson once said that the Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing. Despite the focus of the last few weeks, I have long believed that the real scandal of the Blair-Brown years is not Sleaze, nor Iraq, nor even the fact that they managed to employ Alastair Campbell. It is the fact that a Labour Government - a Labour Government as Neil Kinnock would have put it - has managed to preside over an increase in inequality.

Today's report by the Sutton Trust provides further hard evidence of this catastrophic policy failure for a party of the centre-left.

Of course it wasn't Labour that started it. The decline in social mobility and emergence of a British underclass over the past 30 years is first and foremost the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. But the fact that the gap has continued to widen in the past ten years is proof, if ever it were needed, that the role of New Labour has essentially been to perpetuate the Thatcherite settlement rather than challenge or overturn it.

Some people will point to the demise of the Grammar Schools as a factor in preventing children moving out of deprived backgrounds. Others will blame house prices. Others will fatalistically conclude that the establishment always reasserts itself, and that the effortless superiority learned at public school will always be worth more in the job market than countless A-grades.

Either way, the political upside is that there is a challenge here for Gordon Brown which, if he can grasp it, might even yet give his government the moral purpose it currently lacks, and a way back from the political malaise in which it finds itself.

There is also, if his pride will permit, an old adversary who could help in that task - former Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, who was warning about this as long ago as 2003.

Back then Milburn wrote: "Getting Britain socially moving demands a new front in the battle for equal life chances. The most substantial inequalities are not simply between income groups but between those who own shares, pensions and housing and those who rely solely on wages or benefits."

It was designed as a possible prosepctus for the third term. Four years on, is it too much to be hoped that such ideas could yet form the basis of Labour's programe for a fourth term in power?

Cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy.

More than 80pc of you say Harriet should go

Despite the current focus on Jacqui Smith - a sacrifical lamb if ever there was one - Harriet Harman is not yet quite out of the woods over the dodgy donations affair. My poll shows that 84pc of readers of this blog think she should resign and I reckon that is pretty close to where public opinion as a whole currently stands.

Clear favourite to replace her was Jon Cruddas with 38pc of the vote to 15pc for the next highest-placed candidate, Alan Johnson, 13pc for John Denham and 12pc for Hilary Benn but there appears to be much less interest in this potential contest, possibly reflecting the fact that after this summer's interminable marathon, we're all feeling a bit deputy-leadershipped-out.