The Alternative Election 2019: It's the morning after, again

The country didn't suddenly becomes heartless overnight. Sorry, I should rephrase that. I don't believe that Britain is (enitrely) a place of selfish, intolerant, poor-bashing Tories. And, really, the statistics agree with me on that.

More people voted for progressive ideas (Labour-Lib Dems-Greens) than voted for the conservative ideas (Tories-BXP), both in the UK as a whole and more narrowly in England. And I'm inclined to believe that the conservative vote was artificially inflated by Brexit, the divisive issue of the day.

For those who see "Getting Brexit Done" as the main issue, it is not a simple matter to write them off as secret Tories voting for privatisation. I'm sure many of them want to save the NHS. I'm sure many of them care about the least well off.

But are electoral system is flawed and our institutions painfully rigged up for hostility to radical progressive change. And last night, that resulted in Boris winning 50 more seats and a majority with an increase in support of just 1%.

More damaging for progressives was that Labour lost 8% of their vote compared to 2017, which spread out across the other parties. Conservative gains where less impactful than - or perhaps rather depended upon - Labour losing votes to other parties.

The stats present a picture of progressives playing the electoral game less well than the Conservatives.

Part of that, but only a part, was Brexit. The Conservatives identified themselves clearly with one polarised side of the debate and got their message through. Labour hedged bets.

But the reasons people voted for Brexit were more complicated than people perhaps like to admit - and Brexit supporters, even in the North, were more middle class than people like to admit.

Sure, former industrial towns in the North voted for Brexit, and then for the Tories yesterday. Yet, as Anoosh Chakelian of the New Statesman wrote, it's a long time now since these places were industrial. I'll be keeping an eye out for a demographic analysis of Tory voters in the North.

However, none of this will be terribly reassuring for those who wake up to the terror of a five year Tory majority.

Those people are on my mind this morning. I think those people were on George Monbiot's mind too when he put together a thread of what we can do next - stressing that community action becomes imperative now, to protect as many people as we can.

And that, I think, feeds how progressives fight back politically.

 Something has to change to make the outcome different next time. I think Monbiot is right, we need to start in our communities. And I think Chakelian is right, too: Labour's problems in the North didn't start with Corbyn and won't end there.

People are terrified by their declining living standards. Others are helpless, their living standards having hit rock bottom with food banks and mounting debts. We need to start organising help for those most in need and maybe find there, or build there, a sense of optimism with which to appeal to the 'squeezed middle', to bring them back into a progressive coalition.

For that, progressive politicians need to get their heads out of Westminster. Labour vs Lib Dem vs Green infighting serves no one but the Tories. They need open, amiable leaders committed, not just willing, to cooperating to offer something optimistic.

And I think maybe more needs to be done on top of that. This can't just be won in Westminster and on social media. There needs to be some tangible movement behind it.

A proper electoral alliance. A proper progressive front. And beneath it all, community action. Municipal movements, rallying individual, concerned citizens together with campaign groups on homelessness and rent, payday lending and benefits debt, on all these cause and more than leave me cold and afraid.

The government for the next five years is not going to represent the majority. Well, nothing new there. But there are plenty of people - the most vulnerable, mostly - who depend upon the state.

We need to do what we can to try and pick up the slack for those people and start building towards winning back the support they need and put that central to our thinking as we move forwards.

The Alternative Election 2019: Liberal Democrats, 'Stop Brexit'

The Liberal Democrat offering is lean, moderate, costed and will likely deliver measured but, definite, progressive outcomes. But that may not be radical enough for many who have yet to forget, or forgive, The Coalition.

The Liberal Moment in British politics has been a major disappointment for progressives. For many, disaffected with the authoritarianism of Blair's New Labour and distressed by Labour and the Tories each holding one party control over portions of the country, the Lib Dems offered a better way of delivering policies ostensibly similar to those of Labour.

Getting a taste of government changed things for the Lib Dems. And, for many, it crystalised the priorities of the faction that put Nick Clegg into the party leadership and continues to exert a strong influence as Jo Swinson leads them into a general election for the first time.

When push came to shove, the Lib Dems where willing to sacrifice a lot of other policies, and to break a very particular promise on ending higher education tuition fees, for their priority of boosting early years education funding.

Few have been happy with the compromises the party leadership has been willing to make, but the party has been held together by what has always held the party together: their focus on liberty - on civil rights, the rights of refugees and immigrants, of LGBTQ+ people, of minorities.

But that assumption, that the wings of the party will be held together by this commonality, has begun to feel like something being tested to breaking - with some senior party members, such as party LBGT chair Jennie Rigg, quitting as, in their single-minded quest to "Stop Brexit", the leadership has welcomed defecting MPs into the parliamentary party - no matter how scant their record may be in support of unifying liberal issues, or in the case of Phillip Lee, how in opposition to liberal social politics their record may be.

What are the Lib Dems offering?

Unsurprisingly, that has lead to cancelling Brexit being the central theme and focus of their manifesto - with even a second referendum now being seen as a wasteful concession to a costly distraction. Beyond cancelling Brexit, and reinvesting money dedicated to it into key public services, the Lib Dem manifesto presents four key priorities.

First, to borrow and raise tax to fund the decarbonising of the economy and to tackle the affects of climate change. That includes a £10bn seed for a renewable power fund that would seek additional private sector contributions (not unlike the previous Lib Dem idea of the Green Investment Bank), and £15bn to make homes greener to tackle energy bills and fuel poverty.

The idiosyncratic Liberal Democrat pitch of a penny on tax returns, this time for an earmarked £7bn rise to fund social care and mental health services provision. The manifesto hints at more of this use of 'earmarking' to come, with a consultation on a specific-to-health tax.

As you may now come to expect from the Lib Dems, they intend to put more funding into education. A boost of £10bn for schools is an expected cherry at the heart of plan for reforms to education that shows, perhaps, more depth than any other part of the manifesto - and includes rethinking how frequently and heavily we subject school children to examinations and standardised testing.

Less obvious a pitch, perhaps, is the Lib Dems making their pitch on lifelong learning - matching stride and direction with other progressive parties - that offers a £10,000 per person adult skills & training budget. This may well be considered thin fayre considering the anger that followed when their leadership dropped their opposition to higher education tuition fees.

Through these pledges, there is a leanness to see in the Lib Dem manifesto, especially in how ideas are presented, with seemingly every penny accounted for and balanced. That will turn off many looking for a radical shift - and will be seen as a legacy, or perhaps a hangover, from the Nick Clegg era of 'Equidistance' that pitches at splitting the difference between Labour and the Tories.

This can be further seen in a couple of policies.

Alongside the Lib Dems pitch of 300,000 new homes a year, is a plan to help younger first time renters handle exorbitant deposits with a loan rather than reform - though that does need to be taken in the context of their long term Rent to Own proposal, where rent contributes towards eventual homeownership.

The second is the, shall we say, restrained way in which the party has approached widespread calls for at least a trial of the basic income welfare policy. Their plan, which actually comes from their conference and doesn't seem to have found a place in the final manifesto, is instead for a pilot scheme to trial a guaranteed minimum - more of a 'top up' approach, akin to Gordon Brown's tax credits.

It is worth pointing out, however, that in their analysis of the welfare offering of the main parties, the Resolution Foundation ranked the Lib Dem offering as the best for the poorest - ahead of Labour.

Conclusions

Behind the scenes, the Liberal Democrats are a broad and vibrant party with some particularly radical progressive factions - the Social Liberal Forum comes to mind. Those supporters champion a basic income, land taxes, an expansion of cooperative workplaces, and a government that is more interventionist in pursuing liberty.

But these elements have not, for some time, been representated in the party leadership in a way that reflects how these radical groups are supported among the party's members and supporters.

The Liberal Democrat leadership adheres instead to a lean, dry, and 'sensible' support for the free market - and on how therein to maximise the outcomes for people, within that capitalist framework. That means talking balanced budgets, prioritising education and tweaks, not upheavals, to the capitalist model.

When it comes down to it, the Liberal Democrat pitch - though producing some practical progressive outcomes - may simply lack the radical appeal for the times, not least with the party's damaged reputation.

And so the party will likely be swallowed by the two-party battle between Labour and the Tories, rendering even their best policies futile. Their best hope is taking enough seats to be a player in a hung Parliament.

The Alternative Election 2019: The Labour Party, 'Real Change'

There are headline grabbing, radical changes in the Labour manifesto. And yet in some policy areas, like welfare, they're less progressive than the Lib Dems - that is the paradox long at the heart of the Labour Party, that will stay hard to challenge so long as they remain simply the best shot at ousting the Tories from government.

For Labour, their priority is how they are pitching to people that they can take back control of their lives. The starting point for that in the Labour manifesto is for the wealthiest, those earning more than £80,000, to pay more in tax and for the government to borrow a sum of around £500bn, at the historically low interest rates available, to fund some hugely transformative policies - including the ambition to "make Britain’s public services the best and most extensive in the world". 

How does Labour plan to do that?

Well, public ownership is a big feature of their manifesto. On that front, in all parts, this manifesto goes further than in 2017. From bus networks returning to public ownership, to rail as the franchises expire, to water and energy, and putting workers on company boards, this is a manifesto that wants to undo the privatisations overseen by the Tories in the 1970s and 1980s.

Together with a boost in priority for environmentalism, the twin themes of Public Ownership and Green Industry run through this manifesto, bleeding into most of the policy ideas and frequently being tied one to the other - expressing the idea that the profit motive is destructive to our community and environmental wellbeing.

You can see this in their response to the first of the key progressive priorities: addressing the climate crisis.

On the climate emergency, Labour are promising a Green Industrial Revolution. Of the £400bn that Labour is going to borrow to form it's National Transformation Fund, £250bn is to be directed to Green Transformation - with additional funding coming in the form of lending from the proposed National Investment Bank.

This plan, that appears to be founded entirely on borrowing and lending - with an unspecified amount coming from a windfall tax on oil companies - is how Labour intend to provoke a shift to renewable and low-carbon energy and transport, that delivers net-zero carbon emissions by the 2030s.

Part of the Labour plan to deliver this Green Revolution is to nationalise the energy companies. This goes a step further than what they offered in 2017 (a low-cost rival state-owned supplier), though how this will be funded is left to the reader's assumptions. Readers will likely infer that the money will come from the tax rises on the rich and the intended borrowing - though it is worth keeping in mind that with any nationalisation, the government gains an asset that may ultimately be able to pay for itself.

On health, cutting out private provision is the headline that fits the broader narrative of public control before private profits. Labour promise a 4.3% a year rise in the budget for the health sector - and clearly expect ending outsourcing to private providers to save a significant, if hard to verify, sum of cash to help fund ambitious promises.

There will also be a National Care Service for social care, although the specifics are lacking in the party manifesto - beyond the intention to impose a lifetime cap on personal care costs.

On education, the Labour contribution to the progressive spur of lifelong learning is the National Education Service. At it's core, it represents a massive recruitment drive, with huge numbers of new educators needed to deliver the expansive promises on everything from preschool to adult retraining. These plans come with a lifelong, entitlement to free training up to certain standards and the return of maintenance allowances.

However, the manifesto focuses more on criticising the state of education under the Tories, instead of actually clarifying the detail of changes or how any of this will be paid for - beyond, it is assumed again, that this falls under what Labour hope to pay for with it's tax rise on the richest.

The theme of public ownership is present here too, as Labour promise to abolish tuition fees and engage in a clampdown on private schools - even going so far as to look into integrating them into the comprehensive education system.

Public ownership runs into housing too, as Labour are saying they will build 150,000 social rent homes a years - 100,000 council homes and 50,000 housing association - by the end of a five-year Parliament. And the party commitment to reducing energy consumption, and thus energy bills, by making homes to a greener standard keeps the key Labour themes entwined.

Conclusions

The theme of public ownership and green revolution run through these plans. They are the foundation for an, at times, deeply radical offering.

But there are flaws. The focus on simply undoing the Tories destructive welfare plans, results in Labour offering what is ultimately a less progressive than pitch for welfare reform that what the Lib Dems have offered.

On welfare, however, Labour are promising to run a basic income trial - which is a welfare policy with revolutionary potential should it be implemented, and implemented well.

And then there is the wider context. Labour and Jeremy Corbyn in particular have been besieged by the right-wing press and have found themselves unable to wade out of the antisemitism scandal in which they have sunk.

And Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn wants to stand neutral on the matter, taking no side in a second referendum between whatever he can negotiate in Brussels and the choice to cancel Brexit and remain in the EU.

The reality, however, is that for voters the controversies and flaws will simply play a part in a sadly two-dimensional election fight.

Rather than choosing between nationalisation and privatisation, or between radical funding boosts and more austerity, it's likely people will choose between whether they can tolerate more Tory government or can take a chance on what may seem like drastic change.

The fight between Labour and the Tories, Corbyn vs Boris, will dominate the election - and which of them you don't want to win will probably dominate your voting strategy, in a very tactical battle.

The Alternative Election 2019: Conservatives, 'Status Quo'

Boris offers no change, never mind anything transformative. And the promises he does make can't be trusted. Conservative government will most likely continue in the same vein as before - more austerity, more cuts and the cost of it all falling on the most vulnerable.

This is, plain and simple, an argument for voting against the Tories. Why you would be here looking for an endorsement is beyond me. To be clear: you won't find that here. The Conservative and Unionist Party in government has been a disaster.

Austerity has given rise to the return of Dickensian poverty - working poverty and child poverty prominent. Food bank use is through the roof, schools are taking donations and feeding children going hungry. You only need to check out Channel 4 Dispatches to see how the Tories are comfortable with the poorest subsisting.

How do the Tories reply? A meagre 2% or less rise to working age benefits and the carer's allowance. A continuation of welfare policies that will continue to punish the poorest and hurt their wellbeing most.

And all the while our health and social care system is being mismanaged and underfunded, with waiting times now hitting their worst ever level. All the Tories have for an answer is reannouncing old funding as new, funding previously promised and not delivered - that was predicated upon NHS trusts making slashing cuts to their budgets in the first place.

And if the Conservative commitment to austerity, that is destroying the lives of the most vulnerable people, isn't enough to dissuade you from voting for them, maybe the lies are?

Nevermind the well documented fact that Boris lies (or says something racist or sexist) about as often as he opens his mouth. Nevermind that Boris thinks greed and selfishness are good.

Nevermind the Tories' in general governing-by-media approach of announcing and reannouncing the same spending over and again as new to grab headlines. Nevermind the incompetence of the Tories failing to deliver a single one of their pledged new starter homes because they never bothered to take the necessary initial step of passing the bill in Parliament.

Maybe just consider that (in this election, where Boris lied in an interview by saying he's not a liar) the party under his control decided to deceive viewers (that's you, the voting public) of an election debate by renaming their social media account to "factcheckUK" to attack their opponents - in a debate where Boris himself spoke on how little people trust politicians.

The Conservative Manifesto promises no significant change in policy - not that you could trust it, if it did. It's a do nothing manifesto that lets austerity continue indefinitely. The present disaster is lurching towards catastrophe. It's time (long, long overdue) for people to wake up and kick the Tories out.

The Alternative General Election 2019: Progressive parties need to settle their differences

This is another election that will come down to a simple arithmetic: how can progressives prevent another Tory government, led by Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. That simple arithmetic is given a crudity by the fact that most of the progressive parties do not get along.

It's a particularly extraordinary factor in British politics, when you consider how close our progressive political parties are to one another - in their concerns, in their approach, in their policies. Those crossovers continue into this election.

Progressive Goals

All of the progressive parties share a commitment to tackling the climate crisis, with emissions goals set for the 2030s. The features vary, but include tackling energy costs for households and funding the reorganisation of the energy sector and industry to reduce pollution.

Lifelong learning is also a common feature, committing progressives to spending more to enable people to retrain during their working life, and adapt better as the economy changes.

Across the progressive parties is also an instinct to ease the burden that comes with welfare, including, in some form or another, a trial scheme for a basic income.

And of course, tackling the housing crisis is a key priority for all of them, with each making their pitch for how many and what kind of homes they will build.

As ever though, the parties have their differences. What primarily divides the progressive parties are their jealous priorities - and also their deep seated dislike for one another's approach to politics.

Priorities

For Labour, it is what they call real change - the role that public ownership could and should play in giving people a fair chance at a good life. A possibly expensive policy objective that has riled up a lot of people within and without the party.

For the Greens, it's the climate emergency. The centrepiece to a manifesto with some big commitments is £100bn to reach emissions targets by 2030 - much more ambitious than those of the other parties.

And for the Liberal Democrats, they have made "Stop Brexit" their slogan, and to the annoyance even of some of their own supporters, almost the single issue for which the party now stands - even when they might make meaningful pitches on welfare or education reform.

None of these priorities ought to rule out cooperation, but the mutual antipathy between the parties and their memberships always makes things difficult. But imagine if they could cooperate?

For now, see for yourself how close the two biggest progressive parties get in their manifestos, which we breakdown in these articles below:

Labour manifesto review, 'Real Change';

Liberal Democrats manifesto review, 'Stop Brexit';

and then contrast those with the manifesto, and the record in government, of the Conservatives, 'Status Quo';

How badly do you want the Tories out?

This election has all the makings of another two horse race - however much Jo Swinson may be hoping for a Canadian Liberal scale landslide shift. This country's two-party system is just too hard to crack without extenuating circumstances, and the Lib Dems have made too many people mistrustful.

Which makes Labour's determination to stick to it's majoritarian big tent attitude - even in the Corbyn/Momentum era - all the more absurd. Yes, Britain has a two party system. But it has many more parties, that all gain votes and all have devoted supporters who at times are openly hostile to the big two.

Not working in alliance with the third parties, and not working to break up this inequitable electoral and parliamentary system, is a ludicrous act of self harm by the Labour Party - which clings to the remnants of power, mostly expressed these days in the one-party-state level of control it holds over some communities.

Not that other parties have been displaying much of an appetite for unconditional cooperation. The Lib Dems have been trying to oust Corbyn, or deny him the Premiership, as their price for working with Labour. Meanwhile, the SNP want a second referendum on Scottish Independence as their price - one that is too high for most English parties.

That's not to say there has been no cooperation. Working in a small progressive alliance, the Lib Dems, the Greens and Plaid Cymru will probably be able to pick up some crucial seats among the sixty where they are working together. Taking seats away from the Tories, but perhaps also taking seats from Labour.

Labour need to be on the right side of these political alliances if it wants to get into government. The balance of support, in England in particular, means that Labour depend upon tactical voting for them against the Tories, and voters elsewhere leaving the Tories for parties who have a chance to oust them where Labour are outsiders.

Like at the last election, it may be left for ordinary voters, campaign groups and local party associations to work out the cooperation that the national level party leaderships can't if progressives are to oust the Conservatives and their damaging era of austerity and government-by-press-release.

And the damaging era of Tory rule must end. It's been a disaster for the most vulnerable, with the return of Dickensian poverty. Austerity is bad and there is no end in sight under the Tories.

General Election 2017 - A hopeful night for progressives: It's time to do opposition right

The provisional results, that give the Conservative-Unionist pact a very slim working majority.

The aim for progressives going into last night was supposed to be damage control. As it happened, they'd gone above and beyond - in fact, as the night went on, matters so very nearly tipped the Conservatives right out of government.

It will be interesting to see as the turnout is broken down to see how much of it came down to tactical voting among progressives - not organised by the parties, but voters themselves taking the lead and making their presence felt.

In the end, progressives had to settle for seeing off the Tory advance - a goal achieved with surprising comfort in the end. It came with the cherry topper of handing Theresa May an embarrassing rejection. She demanded the country unite around her and the country said no.

So much for strong and stable.

Theresa May has lost the Conservative majority and is now left dependent upon Arlene Foster and the Democratic Unionist Party - very recently hit by scandal and criticised over mismanagement in government at Stormont - to form a government.

Despite the Conservatives constant criticism of coalitions and relying on regional parties, Theresa May showed no hesitation in cobbling together a government that relied on the support of a narrowly focused regional party with some extreme views.

While the Conservatives deal with despondency, Labour are in a jubilant mood. Although celebrating and calling this a victory might be a little loose with the truth, it's a clear step forward.

In fact it is plenty enough for Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to be justified in their stance that Labour are right now ready to govern as a minority government. It is a strong and confident stance they need to push and Labour MPs need to echo and reinforce.

You have to wonder if Corbyn and McDonnell always understood that Labour's route back to government would always take two elections. Last night they defied a threat of Tory advance, and revitalised themselves at home in their own seats.

Much criticised from within the party or focusing on boosting the party itself, in its own constituencies and ranks of members first, the strategy paid off. Labour's heartlands remained so and young turned out in droves.

Labour even expanded threateningly into Tory country. They took down junior ministers and established a following in the seats of senior ministers, that ran their incumbents very close and place them well for the next big push.

That will be at the next election. It will be a big moment for Labour. They've placed themselves breathing down the necks of the Conservatives and there will be no excuse next time. The platform is now there to launch Labour are into government.

However, Labour winning an election these days requires more than just Labour wins. It needs Liberal Democrat wins too. Last night the Lib Dems showed that they could win, but their performance was otherwise absurdly erratic.

From the nine seats they began the night with with, the party held four seats, lost five seats and gained eight seats. The Lib Dems also had a number of close calls either way - they really could have ended with anything from eight to eighteen seats.

The party largely held up its share of the vote - likely losing some to tactical voting, while gaining a little too. But the party could have hoped for a lot more and there will be some introspection among liberals in the days to come.

Honestly, considering the party's whole campaign at a distance, it's hard not to see Tim Farron's leadership as being compromised, despite the overall slight improvement in the party's position.

The leadership seemed to misjudge the public mood, unwaveringly focusing it's campaign on Brexit and rerun referendums, when many who the Lib Dems had to pitch to appear to have either gotten passed or not cared about in the first place.

And then there were the blunders Farron himself made, that were just plain ridiculous. No leaders of liberals should find themselves getting stuck with the label of intolerance on questions of support for LGBT and abortion rights.

The party's messy night speaks to the lack of clear message that connects values to policies to people, and resonated with an audience - as if the party simply wasn't sure to who exactly it was pitching it's ideas.

The return of Jo Swinson to the Commons for East Dunbartonshire on a clear majority perhaps presents the Liberal Democrats with a viable alternative leader - a woman, not least, outspoken and capable. All things the Lib Dems need to put at the forefront.

The SNP also had a dramatic night. While it is obviously on the one hand a tactic of media management to play down seat losses as best as possible, it was not unreasonable in this case. There really wasn't anywhere for the SNP to go after they swept Scotland last time out and the monopoly couldn't last.

The drama came from who the Lib Dems lost seats to: the Tories. Before the independence referendum that would have been, nearly, unthinkable. But last night, the Tories pretty much saved their political skins with gains in Scotland.

Their gains brought a particularly sad loss: Angus Robertson has lost his Moray seat. Sadly, Robertson will no longer bring his impressive performances to bear from the opposition benches in the Commons.

The big question going ahead now will be who can maintain their vote share and move forward. On several fronts, the Tories seem to have hit a wall that suggests they've maximised their reach. Labour, in contrast, broke new ground.

For Labour, this is a platform to win from. However, to turn that potential into a reality will depend upon keeping young voters, particularly first time voters, engaged and coming back time and again - and that will mean rewarding their engagement.

Labour also has to make a big pitch to Wales over the next five years. Voters in Wales shielded Labour last night, but the party hasn't really earned it - even with Corbyn's bright new manifesto. It has to start delivering.

There is a progressive majority. Seventeen million voted for the Centre-Left, while fifteen million went for the Right. Yet there is a Conservative government - a Hard Right Blue-Orange Loyalist coalition, no less.

It's mandate and majority are thin. Labour has a platform to fight and overturn that now, but first things first. All of the progressive parties have to get opposition right. There can be no messing around this time.

All progressive parties - Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens - have to start coordinating. And right now. Right from the start. The infighting must stop. The progressives turning fire on each other must stop.

All focus now has to be on holding the government to account, to prevent its Hard Right nature from getting out. On LGBT, on abortion, on human rights, on welfare - there are so many crossovers for progressives were opposition will be needed.

Corbyn's result has restored hope to progressives. It has trammelled the Conservatives. The time to make that count is now. The next election campaign starts now - and this time it'll be a fight progressives can win.

General Election 2017 - Housing: There is a progressive consensus that Britain needs more homes and more protection for renters

The future of housing in Britain is a key issue, for which the main parties rarely have a convincing answer.

It is not an overstatement to say that housing is in crisis in Britain. The housing and homelessness charity Shelter are stern in their assessment of a Britain that is short on affordable housing and facing the rise in precariousness and powerlessness that follows.

The Conservative approach to the crisis has been half-measures and pointed fingers. Despite the facts not agreeing with them, the Tory government has insisted it has built more houses than Labour - placing the present problems at their opponents feet.

Meanwhile their own response has amounted to mostly shoring up their own supporters. Disproportionately to the disadvantage of the least well off, the Tories have raided the public sector- councils and housing association - for more homes to prop up a housing market reluctant to build.

The Conservatives continue to make promises. In the Autumn, as they acknowledged they have failed to meet targets, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Sajid Javid announced plans for a mix of funds and loans to get back on target.

Theresa May has announced, during the current campaign, that new land will be made available for Councils to build social housing - though, they'll still be sold off after ten to fifteen years. And the plan isn't new, just a re-announcement of previous spending commitments.

It is painfully unclear that Conservative plans will not do much of anything to affect the fundamental problems.

What is clear is that there is a progressive consensus to be found on housing. Across the Left and Centre, there is a realisation that - at the raw heart of the matter - more homes need to be built. There is no escaping from that reality.

The Labour response has been to pledge a million new homes over five years. The plan accounts for half of those to be council and housing association homes, to be made available for affordable rents. The pledge was accompanied by a commitment to ensuring more secure tenancies and end bad letting practices.

The Liberal Democrats by comparison have pitched for 300,000 new homes a year across the next parliament. As is becoming more common, they have combined this with a plan to allow councils to levy penalty fees on absentee landlords with empty homes - up to 200% of council tax.

This theme of building homes, tackling bad landlording and taking on the problem of empty homes is also present in the Green Party's policy announcements. Their proposals pretty much match Labour's step for step and include the Lib Dems focus on bringing empty homes back into use.

However, what no party has offered is a concrete means of dealing with the fundamental problem: a 259% rise in house prices over just twenty years. The standard response has been simply to increase the sheer number of houses - hoping that increasing market supply alone will drive down prices.

Certainly, making rental more secure, longer termed and protected from bad practices - like hiked rents or exorbitant fees - more widely available will go some way to providing viable alternatives to home ownership, that will increase competitive pressure.

But at some point, some party or movement will have to address the fundamental roadblock to housing reform in Britain: the interests of homeowners, landlords, developers and the government being so closely aligned and deeply invested in the continued increase in property values as to form a cartel.

This problem goes deep into the heart of Britain's economic system and find there problems that are supposed to be extinct.

The rentier - the magnate who makes their unearned income from rent - is seen as an issue of the early twentieth and even nineteenth century, but remains a problem in modern Britain.

It was one of the things that originally led liberals to coalesce into a party to fight: the power of aristocratic landlords who maintained their wealth and privilege on the back of the work of others. Their answer was to fight for earned income to replace rent income.

Yet conservatism adapted and capitalism has kept alive at its core a rentier class, that finds disproportionate advantage. The continued prevalence of inherited wealth and the huge privilege afforded to wealth, allows a class to virtually exclude others from access to one of the most basic needs: shelter.

Addressing the grip of this cartel just simply isn't in the interest of a government - not least conservatives. In Britain, so much has been staked on 'financialisation' and that investment speculation is deeply entwined with property.

But what is the answer? The strong or expansive economies of countries like Germany and Singapore both have huge public ownership of land and housing and in the last twenty years have not seen prices rise like they have amidst Britain's private finance and privatisation boom.

The progressive parties are all putting forward plans that will be an improvement upon Conservative policy and there is real and meaningful overlap in their ideas. They recognise that Britain needs more decent affordable homes and renters need protection. That alone is enough to vote for progressive parties on the issue of housing, over Tories that raid social housing to feed an out of control market.

But the big answers on housing have yet to make their way into the party mainstream in Britain.

Local Elections 2017: What did we learn?

County Hall in Derbyshire, now under the Conservative control thanks to a local election sweep that doesn't bode well for Labour prospects in June. Photograph: County Hall, Matlock, Derbyshire by bazzadarambler (License) (Cropped)

The big story from the 2017 local elections is that the Tories made big gains. Hard to get past that, even if some gains have been rather misreported to more effectively represent the narrative people want to tell (Murray, 2017).

For a sitting government to make such sweeping gains is very unusual. And yet, it wasn't quite the kind of triumphal sweep that polls would have led us to expect (Murphy, 2017) - especially in the Tory heartland shires.

It's even more underwhelming, perhaps, when UKIP's collapse is taken into consideration. Every single seat they held was lost and they were swallowed whole by the Tories. Yet, this was no landslide.

Yes, Labour certainly took hits, but there were perhaps fewer than feared and the party even held on in some key places, like urban South Wales, and won a couple of Mayoral contests in Liverpool and Manchester.

That's not to say this wasn't a bad night for Labour. At the least, it'll be seen as another reason for the disgruntled to break with the party leadership and attack Corbyn. But in the revealed weakness should be clarity.

Labour know where they're weak, they know where they'll be targeted, and they have a good idea who and how. The path to the 8th June should be clear, the roads in need of some barricades should be obvious.

And it should be obvious that in places across the East Midlands, in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire for instance, Labour need the support. In both of these counties, and their neighbouring cities, Labour have seats at risk and they lost a lot of county council seats in both.

That support can only come from a Progressive Alliance. With Conservatives rallying around one banner, and attracting former Labour supporters, Labour MPs will need the help.

The estimated national poll figures for the local elections where the Conservatives on 38%, Labour on 27% and the Lib Dems back up to 18% (Curtice, 2017) - very 1992, but with weaker main parties.

These numbers are short of a Conservative landslide but still bad for Labour, giving nobody what they want. Polls have suggested that the gap is perhaps closable before June, but completely overcoming the gap is unlikely.

These results make that clear. Which leads to the conclusion that the practical and achievable aim of progressives is to stop the Tories expanding their majority, perhaps even cutting it, through tactical voting.

To hurt the Tory majority, progressives need to keep their shoulders to certain barn doors, because the Conservatives do still have vulnerabilities that various candidates across the country can expose. The Lib Dems in particular have a chance to take back a number of seats.

The evidence of the local elections then is that, for the Left and Centre, this is a defensive election. In Brighton, and in parts of London, the message has caught on. But that message needs to spread.

Election 2017: Is this the Progressive Alliance moment? It's up to you

Out of the blue, Theresa May turned tail yesterday and called an election. Perhaps the numbers were just too enticing to refuse? Whatever her motivation, the Prime Minister made her rather chilling call for support to defeat 'jeopardising', 'weakening' and game-playing opposition.

The next step was a formality. Parliament, required to vote in a two-thirds super majority to dissolve Parliament and call a new election, did so with a minimum of fuss and an overwhelming majority of over five hundred. The next step for progressives is to figure out how to fight the campaign ahead.

It might seem like a harsh assessment, but this is an era of disappointing leaders. May, Corbyn and Farron are all flawed, and all present contradictions and difficulties for their parties and followers. Progressives are feeling the impact of this more deeply in this time of conservative ascendency.

Fortunately for progressives, it isn't necessary for high level party establishments to lead the way. Local parties and voters themselves can take the lead. Now more than ever there is a need for people to take the reins and face an election one constituency at a time.

In any given constituency that produces a simpler question: who is the progressive who can defeat the conservative opponent?

That is what lies at the root of a progressive alliance. Not a party-led, top-down, electoral alliance, but a community-led campaign to support the best candidate standing for, in hope and in defence, progressive principles. For social justice, individual liberty and a sustainable, democratic future.

The parties themselves will fight how they see best for them as organisations, with their own self-interest at heart. But established organisations and their leaders are rarely bold in plotting their course, sticking to safe lines far from the radical frontiers.

The first step is organising in your own community, rallying members, activists and supporters of each progressive party around a single progressive candidate. The next will be to figure out who has, historically and currently, the strongest support and where - so the candidates with the best chance to beat conservatives can be chosen.

This isn't ideal, but the political system is designed to punish anyone who doesn't conform with exclusionary majoritarian thinking. That makes it all the more important to get a progressive government, because the Conservatives have never and are unlikely to ever, support proportional representation - first past the post reflects and protects conservatism and its creed of minority rule.

But that is just one of the values that progressives share, though it's sometimes hard to cut through the partisan divisions to see the commonalities. On equality, liberty, justice, progress - liberals, social democrats, democratic socialists, socialists, trade unionists, feminists, municipalists and environmentalists, and many others, share so many values that enable them to work together.

For a progressive alliance to happen, it's not necessary to wait on the approval of leaders to discover the will to be bold. The people can make it happen. They can set the pace and the tone and let the leaders be led, to catch up with the new reality in their own time.