The questions the Prime Minister doesn't answer are usually the important ones, like Layla Moran's question on free childcare

Photograph: Child Care by Lubomirkin on Unsplash (License) (Cropped)

On Wednesday, new Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran attempted to ask a question at PMQs. Her effort was drowned out - and ultimately upstaged by - the Tories' reaction. The bad behaviour of MPs got the headlines and successfully buried the lead.

Getting the media to write headlines about bad behaviour - the proverbial dead cat on the table - rather than the substance of policy is the basic aim of cynical political strategy. For the Conservatives, that's a point scored.

Moran was finally able to ask her question, though, and called on the PM to take action on the problems that have arisen with the Government's longstanding pledge to expand free childcare to thirty hours a week for 3 and 4 year olds.

The Prime Minister's response was less than convincing and that shouldn't be a surprise. The problems encountered in delivering this flagship policy underline the fundamental failings of the May Government and it's predecessor.

The plan to expand free childcare, a major campaign promise, has run into major problems. The moderated version of these events are that some thousands of families can't access the service thanks to 'technical issues'.

However, Layla Moran turned a light on the deeper problems underlying the implementation: the Tory claim that they were offering so called 'free' childcare masks the fact that they're not paying the full cost of the childcare.

This is a persistent habit of the Tories. They make big pledges, but then shift responsibility for delivery, and for raising funding, to others. Local government has also been hurt by this Conservative approach.

The Tories hand off ever further responsibility from central government, while drastically reducing funding as they devolve control over it. Social care in particular has been badly hit, even as the costs in the sector continually rise.

It's worth noting it was Theresa May's attempt to respond to that self-created social care crisis that hurt the Tories so badly at the election. The party's new plans for social care - to raid middle class homeowners - didn't survive beyond the manifesto launch.

In the case of childcare, it means that many providers won't offer the service as it is simply not finacially viable to do so. That will restrict access to free care. For others, it will mean increased costs as providers are forced to spread the costs across other service users.

This is a trend with the Conservatives, one that has plagued the policies enacted by the government. Privatised delivery has produced poor results and ethical violations in the provision of welfare. Local government has had funding taken away and then been called out for not keeping front line services, such as libraries, open.

Outcomes can be explained away. They can be put down to ideological differences as to the end goals, or dismissed with excuses blaming past governments or other bodies. But the failure of flagship policies shouldn't be shrugged off.

The expansion of free childcare is a long standing promise, but one that has had a cloud over it for most of that time. Failure to provide the plans with adequate funding was pointed out as far back as the end of 2016.

Problems have been noted and gone unaddressed, undermining the fundamental promise contained in the pledged policy. Failures like this need to be catalogued, because it keeps happening under these Conservative governments.

Shifting responsibility to others, denying funding. At some point, the buck has to stop and the Conservatives have to be held to account for their policies and their failure in the delivery of them.

To be 'progressive' is to be hopeful, but progress won't happen by itself: first, the Left has to reach out and connect

Politics returns to Westminster from recess today to a social atmosphere, in Britain and elsewhere, that has become toxic with the noxious fumes spewed by bitterly divided sectarian factions.

Westminster returns from its latest recess today, to a political mood that has rarely been more toxic. Last night's American Presidential debate captured well the noxious fumes, unconstrained by borders or languages, that have poisoned the political atmosphere (Krugman, 2016).

Ignorance and anger abound, and, what's worse, they're being exploited. In the UK, the Conservative Party Conference set official policy at a new low over the weekend when it proposed forcing companies to make open lists of foreign born workers (BBC, 2016; Syal, 2016).

Instead of abolishing ignorance with education and facts - instead of diffusing anger and bringing calm - instead of reasonableness - anger is being inflamed and ignorance reinforced. Politics has lost a sense of reasonableness.

Harsh rhetoric has driven out decency and moderation. Compromise and consensus seem further away than ever. From France to the United States, the political arena has been reduced to a vague political class circling the wagons to see off opponents stoking ignorance and anger to advance their agendas.

All the while, important matters are rendered impossible to address by the partisan impasse created by opposing outrages flung across wide gulfs of understanding between deeply entrenched factions. Whether Europe or America, people need access to affordable healthcare, affordable housing and affordable energy - and all of it stable and sustainable.

For progressives - whether radical or moderate - decency, reasonableness and respect for a plurality of voices aught to be at the heart of any method that pursues those objectives. So for those who cherish these things, the rise of narrow aggressive sectarianism has made politics in 2016 difficult to navigate and hard to bear.

But the only way is forward, and the only way forward is to reach out. At the Compass Progressive Alliance event, journalist John Harris spoke with passion about the people in the abandoned North who voted for Brexit. He said that:

"These are places characterised by fear. Yes, a fear of immigration and the idea that it might make opportunities even more scarce and wages even lower and put more pressure on already way overstretched services. But underlying this all is a very, very cold, frightening really, fear of the future. A fear, when you talk to people, even of tomorrow and next week.

Please, let's not think about the vast majority of the people I've talked about, who voted Leave, as stupid or deluded or bigoted and hateful... If you haven't got a progressive politics which speaks to places which embody the inequality we all fight against, its not worthy of the name."

Before progressives can reach out, they need to understand what it is that they themselves want, and why - and they need to understand what that will mean for the lives and livelihoods of the least well off. And if these two understandings cannot be completely reconciled, work has to begin on a meaningful compromise, on an inclusive next step.

To be progressive is to be hopeful - to believe in human progress, to believe that all people are capable of self-improvement. But it won't occur on its own. It requires defeating neglect with care & listening, ignorance with education & encouragement, despair with hope & opportunity. The norm is adversarial politics that divides to rule. The progressive alternative has to reach for something better.