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 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.

Conference round-up: What are the main takeaways from party conference season?

The time of austerity is coming to an end. Or at least that is the overaching message of party conference season. It invites the bigger question of whether the Conservatives would actually be willing and able to deliver it's end.

Last year's election showed the Tories that even a coordinated media bashing of Corbyn wasn't enough to dampen enthusiasm for the content of the Labour manifesto and their call for a step change away from the time of austerity.

The Conservatives know they have to adapt. But they will start only by changing their message, rather than reinforcing that with any particularly drastic change in funding - hence Theresa May telling Prime Ministers Questions that austerity was going to end, but not 'fiscal responsibility'.

The Chancellor Philip Hammond used his conference speech to hint at a change of message, telling party members the Conservatives couldn't afford to be a party of 'no change'. The Prime Minister followed that up by saying austerity was coming to an end.

Opposition scepticism is entirely appropriate.

The Tories will be reluctant converts to the anti-austerity cause (except, perhaps those in local government), and the move was probably forced Labour's unabashed commitments to higher taxes, more spending and a definitive end to austerity.

In fact, Paul Johnson at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) called the Labour proposals the most radical in a long time, capable of deeply affecting the UK economy, and transforming expectations and assumptions about how the economy will work.

The other main lesson of conference season was, obviously, Brexit. As it has taken over every other aspect of politics in Britain, so it has taken over party conference season.

The Tories were, as usual, mired in their three way factional splits - hard right Brexiters, moderate Remainers and Theresa May's split the difference

However, Labour took a step towards laying out in more certain terms their position - with the party more or less all onboard. The party's red lines, particularly a customs union agreement, were supplemented by a commitment to a People's Vote second referendum in the event that final deal fails to pass muster.

The party's preference remains to force an election on Brexit, but the concession Labour's Remainers, to support a People's Vote to ensure the public get a say, is a step towards bringing the party to a (mostly) united position.

Meanwhile, as would be expected, the Liberal Democrats lambasted all who would oppose a People's Vote second referendum. But beneath the business as usual, it was good to see the party's radical liberal factions put some progressive ideas on the table - such as a sovereign wealth fund and more support for cooperatives.

The Greens had the same mix of Brexit and domestic policy at their conference. On the domestic front, they pushed for wellbeing - particularly relating to free time - to get a higher place in our measurement of the UK's economic and living standards.

Finally, the SNP joined their push for a second referendum on Scottish Independence with opening the way for their MPs to support a second referendum on Brexit. While it isn't a straightforward piece of arithmetic, opposing Brexit is consistent with how people in Scotland have voted and may prepare better ground for their own ambitions.

The onrolling Brexit steamroller aside, the end of austerity was the biggest headline. It would seem that Theresa May is right, that austerity coming to an end - but in spite of them, not because of them. The Tories seem to sense the mood is shifting.

There is a big opportunity ahead for the progressive parties, to undermine the case for austerity and drag out into the light the ideological choices that enforced it and the consequences of the Conservative choice to impose it.

Labour and the Lib Dems are close on policy, but they have a caustic relationship that hinders shared progressive aims

Party conference season is well under way and with it the pointless partisan finger pointing. Holding authority to account is never pointless, but progressive parties taking pot shots at each other is - with no real meaningful returns.

That has been a particularly lamentable feature of relations between Labour and the Liberal Democrats over the past decade, and a sad situation when the two parties have for a long time been very close in terms of policy.

The Liberal Democrat conference had some predictable elements, like the focus on resisting Brexit. But there were a number of policies that made it onto the table at the conference that tell an interesting story of the party's internal dynamics.

Although their leadership, through a few iterations now, have been committed to a centrist, split-the-difference, approach to how they present their policies to the public - placing them half way between Labour and the Tories - that stance doesn't reflect the wider scope of Lib Dem policy.

In our breakdown of party policies for the 2017 elections, it was clear there a not only a distinctly centre left theme, but that the gap between the Lib Dems and Labour was far narrower than you would think from either side's rhetoric.

Both parties had a positive economic outlook, aiming to increase long term public investment by hundreds of billions. Both sought to reverse tax cuts for corporations and raise taxes on the wealthiest. While the Lib Dems proposed loosening the Tories restrictions on welfare, Labour called for more democratic power for workers in their workplaces - whether through coops or through more locally owned utilities.

That same closeness can be seen in the ideas that the radical liberal factions of the Liberal Democrats put on the agenda at their conference. Policies like a redistributive sovereign wealth fund, taxing wealth to reinvest; pushing for better support for cooperatives, social enterprises and for stakeholders over shareholders; and support for a basic income trial in Wales.

Yet their leaders, elected representatives and talking heads, still feel the need to attack each other. For progressives, these caustic relationships are of no use, serving only to drive allies apart and make progressive goals harder to achieve.

Criticism is necessary. Dissent is necessary. While progressive parties have plenty in common, they often differ when it comes to priorities and methods. But being drawn into the politics-to-media-to-politics cycle of personal attacks achieves nothing.

Dissent shouldn't be a barrier to cooperation, nor should it be a cause to resort to crude attacks. It is the basis of rational debate, that holds to us to a higher standard. Progress is built on that foundation. Progressive leaders need to remember that.

Local Elections 2018 Preview: Labour look set for gains, but what we need more is a greater diversity of perspectives

Manchester City Council, with 95 Labour councillors and 1 Liberal Democrat, is a prime example of the need for a greater diversity of unwhipped perspectives in local government. Photograph: Manchester Town Hall by Stephen Douglas (Licence)

After last year's opportunistic election did not go to plan for Theresa May's Conservative and Unionist Party, her government - propped up by the Northern Irish loyalist Democratic Unionist Party - has been stumbling from one potential crisis to another.

These elections come at a strange time. Despite both main parties struggling, they both remain at around 40% in the polls and have a strangling grip on local government. Is this a chance for smaller parties to make some breakthroughs on councils?

With the majoritarian two-party system reasserting itself, some pushback from smaller parties like the Greens or Lib Dems would be welcome, to ensure representation of a wider set of perspectives - and to increase the accountability of local councils.

Conservatives

This will be the Tories first big electoral test since then. The final totals will need to weighed against the fact that half of the seats up for re-election are currently held by Labour. Yet there could be some headline defeats for the government.

Theresa May's party is particularly at risk of losing council seats in London. This includes control of Wandsworth, their flagship council from the time of Margaret Thatcher, which was used as the pioneer for contracting out local services.

The Conservative have taken a low key approach to the local elections. This may be a result of their own strategists projecting heavy losses to Labour. Downing St may have accepted that and prepared to downplay the significance.

This hasn't stopped local Conservative branches from pursuing aggressive campaigning tactics - including repeating the racist and Islamophobic overtones of the Goldsmith campaign for Mayor of London, which targetted Sadiq Khan's ethnicity and religion.

This time around there has been condemnation from Tory voices. But is the Conservative establishment distancing itself simply because of the timing? Local councillors have said their leaflets were signed off by Conservative HQ.

Mired by the Windrush scandal - entirely of their own creation - and with the media pursuing Labour hard over antisemitism, did the Tories just find it an inconvenient moment to be pursuing openly divisive tactics themselves?

Labour

With Labour holding most of the council seats up for grabs this time around, the party has to make inroads in Conservative areas. Part of that has them focussing very heavily on London - perhaps sensing that there are big headlines to be written.

Key Conservative controlled areas could be vulnerable to Labour and sweeping gains - on a night when they will begin already in a dominant position - will be an emphatic statement that can be milked for publicity and be used to continue the narrative of a Labour Party on the ascent.

For the Labour Party leadership, that would be a much need boost as their forward momentum has been arrested - despite the Tories creating problems for themselves - by their inability to adequately address the issue of antisemitism.

The media and critics have run roughshod over Labour on the issue, and Corbyn and his team have not come up with a way to convincingly show that antisemitism will not be tolerated - and thus diffuse the issue. As a result, a cloud hangs over the party.

So too does the ever looming prospect of a split. It's hard to see how anyone on the opposition benches would benefit, in the short term, from an inamicable split - even though a split increasingly seems like a good idea, to end the spiteful internal squabbling.

A split is hindered however, by the archaic quirks of our electoral system, that does not abide multiple parties and the increase in critical perspectives it can bring, nor the prospect of groups working together despite holding different membership cards.

Opposition

The Green Party laid out this, the big theme of the local elections, in the UK in their campaign launch. Co-leader Jon Bartley called for an end to Britain's "one-party state" local councils, to increase their transparency and accountability to local people.

It's an argument that thinktank Compass and it's chair Neal Lawson also press, stressing that Labour need to overcome their obsession with claiming a monopoly on power - which leads it to absorb or crush any possible rivals, rather than working with them.

In terms of the Green Party's own prospects, their best hope may be in trying to make inroads into Labour dominated councils, whose unchallenged authority has resulted in some poor outcomes - that have left some voters disaffected. Consider, for example, the goings-on under Labour at Haringey or Sheffield.

The other visible party of opposition in local government are the Liberal Democrats. Buoyed perhaps by their consistent - as usual - good form in council by-elections, they've been talking up their chances of a mini-revival at the local government level.

With the polls consistently putting the Conservatives and Labour neck and neck, 40% to 40%, it's difficult to see where the Lib Dems will make inroads - especially after several years of desperate defence, to hang on to what they hold.

As supporters of a Progressive Alliance, The Alternative wants the Lib Dems to refind their progressive side. But at present their best chance of picking up seats may be by, finally, convincing Conservative voters that what they liked about the Coalition was actually the Lib Dems all along.

So watch Lib-Con head-to-heads. This is a dynamic that could have a gigantic affect on a future election, where Lib Dems taking votes and seats directly from the Tories could tip Theresa May out of office and open the way for Labour.

Voter ID

These local elections will also be the first to trial the controversial new Voter ID measures that the Conservatives hope to roll out nationally. Such measures have been deeply criticised by electoral and rights groups.

The reality is that, first of all, Britain has very little in the way of electoral fraud, and second, that Voter ID does little to stop voter fraud. In fact, it does little but deter voters - discriminating particularly against the poor.

The trial runs will take place in Swindon, Gosport, Woking, Bromley, and Watford.

Municipalism

If we are to have effective local government there must be no barriers to participation for the community. Their representatives must be accountable and transparent, and able to hold local bodies to those same standards on the public behalf.

Erecting barriers, especially those disproportionately impacting voters from minority groups, and leaving one-party local councils unchallenged, is a recipe for bad governance. Well run, accountable local government can achieve so much at the municipal level.

There are big ideas out there, from Barcelona to Preston. Municipalism taking root. Local government can empower local people. The first step is to break up the local political monopolies, to leave them no choice but to start hearing criticism and engaging with it.

The Opposition: The progressive parties have begun to look outwards again, but cooperation is still far away

The opening fortnight of Britain's political conference season was all about the opposition. First the Liberal Democrats and then the Labour Party took their turns to gather, talk policy and present their priorities to the country.

There were two notable currents: the first was a focus on calling out others for their failings, rather than presenting plans that can fix those problems; the second was the lack of some common progressive goodwill.

The Liberal Democrat conference came first. The most prominent product was the acceptance by leader Vince Cable, on behalf of the party, that they must do right by students, with a plan now in the works to back a graduate tax to replace tuition fees.

That aside, the Lib Dem conference was policy light. The focus turned instead to establishing who the party opposes, which it turns out is a long list - and included Jeremy Corbyn and the supposed 'hard left' that surround him.

What Cable did however do, was put forward an outline of a government committed to the fair taxation of wealth, to public & private sector cooperation, and a government prepared to intervene to correct market failures - laying out a centre-left stance for the Lib Dems that leaves plenty of room for progressive cooperation.

The Labour conference provided a little more in the way of policy. However, the announcements didn't stretch far beyond the limits of the 2017 manifesto. John McDonnell said that Labour intend to tackle PFI and end it's siphoning of public sector resources.

There was also a plan announced to tackle credit card debt, along the same lines as pay day loans - by capping the maximum interest that can be accrued on debts owed.

In his leader's speech, Jeremy Corbyn followed Cable's lead and had criticism for many - including the right-wing press and the US President. He said that the country had become more brutal and less caring under this Conservative 'regime'.

Corbyn too stated values on which progressives can work together. On froeign policy, Corbyn argued that rhetoric must be wound down, that dialogue must be opened, that peace must be pursued and cooperation must be at the heart. He argued that the British values of democracy and human rights could be deployed selectively.

However, the leader speeches of both Corbyn and Cable focused on laundry lists of people deserving criticism. Cable even took shots at Corbyn and his leadership, criticising the 'hard left' drift of the Labour Party under the long time Islington North MP.

Corbyn didn't bother to mention the Lib Dems, but - from Labour's point of view - that's hardly a surprise. Labour still see the Lib Dems as rivals and, at present, vanquished rivals that are beneath their notice.

The continued lack of some sort of common goodwill between progressive parties is disappointing, though not surprising. No one ever said that building a progressive alliance would be easy. But taking shots at each other is a waste of breath.

It is also doubly negative. On the one hand it serves to divide opposition to the Tories. While on the other it also ignores how close on policy the two largest (historical) progressive parties are to one another.

The division between their manifestos in 2017 was as just thin as it has been since the 1920s. The Liberal Democrats and Labour pursue similar goals and even take a similar economic approach, rooted in Keynesian thinking.

Herein lies the fundamental problem of the left: the inability to prioritise what we have in common, over what would be a cause for division - a failure to develop a dialogue that allows for dissent to live alongside cooperation.

It is good to see the opposition parties looking outward again, rather than turning in on themselves. The narrative around Corbyn has already begun to shift, to morph into something that accepts him, and crafts a place for the movement in the conventional order.

However, the long term future of the left, of progressive politics, lies in building dialogue. And, hopefully, upon that foundation then cooperation and ultimately an alliance between progressives.

Liberal Democrat Leadership: A chance to breathe progressive energy into a party sorely in need of a fresh start

Last month Tim Farron chose to resign as leader of the Liberal Democrats. This article won't focus on that, other than where it affects the way forward. However, his resignation does present the party with an opportunity.

The party has been on a rollercoaster, from their first experience of government in decades to a catastrophic loss of public trust that resulted in an electoral collapse that lost the party all but eight seats in the Commons.

Under Farron, who had no part in the Coalition, it appeared that things were turning around. Recoveries in council elections, and the remarkable by-election upset in Richmond Park, suggested that the pro-European party would do well at a general election.

The results were, by most measures, disappointing. Yes there were gains, with some of the party's bigger names returning - even as others departed. But the party went hard on one issue and it didn't land. And there were also unhelpful distractions.

With yet another election unlikely to be far away, the party is at an impasse. There was no election surge and the party has no resonating message. It now has no leader either.

Contenders

The next leader has to grasp these challenge quickly and get on top of them. There can be no room for looking inwards. When nominations close in a week's time, the contenders putting themselves forward must give the party moving forward.

At the outset, it seemed like there would be an a list of experienced contenders to debate just how to do that. The favourites included the experienced former ministers Norman Lamb, Ed Davey and Vince Cable.

But the strong favourite was Jo Swinson. Not only would she have have been the party's first female leader - an important statement in itself - the party would have had in Swinson a liberal feminist at the helm outspoken and capable.

The biggest difficulty barrier ahead of her candidacy, it had seemed, was her time as a minister in the Coalition. Yet her early Parliamentary career was so tangled up with Cabinet collective responsibility, that her voting could only really be seen as representative of the Coalition as a whole.

That gives Swinson, in her return to the Commons, something near to a fresh start. A chance to establish her own agenda and to define herself, and her party, anew.

However, despite being labelled the favourite (by a wide margin), Swinson chose not to stand. She was promptly elected Deputy Leader, however, so her voice will not be missed at the head of the party.

Her choice not to stand would become a trend. Soon after, Ed Davey and Norman Lamb both announced they would not stand either. With no challenger yet coming forward, Vince Cable is at present the only candidate to become the next leader.

Renewal

Over the years, the liberal parties in Britain have found themselves caught between two movements. The free marketers have been pulled rightward by the Conservatives and the social liberals have been pulled leftward by Labour.

And yet, the Liberal Democrats seemed to be making inroads as an alternative progressive party to Labour until the 2010 general election. In longstanding liberal tradition, the party announced it would respect pluralism and go into coalition with the party with most seats and most votes.

That decision, that led to Cameron and Clegg announcing the Coalition in the Rose Garden, ultimately proved wildly unpopular. It hangs over the party two years on. As the presumptive next leader, Vince Cable needs to address weaknesses like these.

To his credit, Cable has already taken steps to head off those concerns that more collaboration with the Tories awaits in the future. Cable described working with the Tories was like mating with a praying mantis - not something you're likely to survive twice.

It helps that the party has been clear that it won't be making any deals and in the election campaign, even Nick Clegg spoke of the need to work constructively with Labour in the aftermath to oppose the Tories - a clear sign that there is no going back.

The break from the past could bring with a fresh start on policy too. At the centre of the their 2017 campaign was the call for a second referendum. But it didn't really get traction. It was a policy that seemed to have missed a change in the public mood.

There is a growing sense that people have accepted that Brexit is going to happen and are focussing now on the future - a mood that makes the Lib Dems position seem nostalgic, or even conservative.

There is, perhaps, a need to draw a line under staying in - following what might be considered two defeats - and to realign thinking toward the future. Not to stop being pro-Europe or even pro-Remain, but to think about what these mean going forward rather than trying to undo the past. Three points to consider would be:

• to scrutinise and campaign for the least damaging Brexit,
• to support the right for individuals to retain their EU citizenship,
• and, to start talking about pathways back to European cooperation in the future.

The key is to start taking the initiative and look forwards, not backwards. To get back to basics, like questions of individual's rights. That idea doesn't just extend to policy on Europe.

Perception

At the heart of being forward-looking in developing policy and taking stances is public perception. For smaller parties it is a difficult, and sometimes perilous, tightrope to walk. But at it's heart, there are practical limitations these parties face and they must tailor their message to that reality.

When he resigned, Tim Farron drew a link between his decision and questions that arose in the election campaign suggesting a conflict between faith and politics. Farron portrayed the conflict as only the perception of an intolerant illiberal secularism.

Now, it certainly isn't incompatible for someone to be personally conservative and yet politically liberal, open and tolerant of others, and respecting their right to live their own lives.

But it is a hard stance to hold as the leader, as the figurehead, of a liberal movement. When asked to assuage doubts about his stance on LGBT and abortion rights, Farron failed to offer reassurance - focusing instead on himself.

Politics is a game played in soundbites and shorthands. The grand rhetoric and inspiring thought absolutely matters, so very much, but it isn't the gateway - the access point. Image and perceptions matter.

For the smaller third parties - for whom taking symbolic stands are one the few opportunities they get to show the public who they are - the leadership has to be a beacon of the values of that party, without equivocation.

The Coalition interfered with the Liberal Democrats' ability to make themselves distinct. The comedown from the personality politics that grew up around Nick Clegg has tarnished their image, along with the links to the Tories.

The party's long held commitments to plurality, to compromise, to democratic cooperation and serving the national interest above the party interests are all worthy. But little of it ever makes it to the public eye and is rarely interpreted as intended.

The party also seems to have struggled to establish what it is for, pitching a stance of 'equidistance' under Clegg that didn't really change under Farron. While there is nothing wrong with Centrism, it shouldn't be confused with just splitting the difference.

As a small party, the Lib Dems can't afford those confusions. It needs a clear message. For a good example, consider the party's 1997 manifesto. It called for active government that would strengthen liberty, promote prosperity and widen opportunity. There is what liberalism is supposed to stand for, summarised in three words: Liberty - Prosperity - Opportunity. Hopeful words that focus on the future, not just management of the mediocre present.

Foundation

The 2017 general election established a Liberal Democrat baseline and perhaps new foundations. Even with just a dozen MPs, the party still have the ability to put forward a capable frontbench team, with recognisable names associated with positive progressive campaigns.

From Vince Cable, with a long history as a treasury spokesperson and minister, and an economics expert; to Ed Davey, who was minister for energy and the environment; to Norman Lamb, who was a minister in the Department of Health, is an outspoken advocate of parity of esteem for mental health and now also chair of the Science and Technology select committee; there are strong credentials. In addition, both the returning Jo Swinson and the brand new Layla Moran are MPs who look like future party leaders.

There Lib Dems survived their mistakes and have decent foundations to build upon. But there are decisions to be made if the party wants to make it back from the brink - for the second time in it's history. But do so, the party needs to be much more self-aware and it needs to be clear.

There is still a place for liberalism under a broader progressive banner, but it has to commit. Even standing as centrist, with its cherished value of inclusivity, can be progressive. But the centre is not to be found halfway between Labour and the Tories.

Vince Cable, increasingly likely to be the next leader, has made positive steps in that direction. He has affirmed the "no deals" stance, with particular venom towards the Tories, supported the Compass campaign for a Progressive Alliance over the past few years and received cross-party backing in his own seat of Twickenham.

The last liberal recovery was founded in localism, campaigning and standing as a progressive party. The 2017 manifesto showed that the core of those ideas remains unchanged. What the party have lost their identity. It must be the new leader's priority to get it back.

The Yellow Tide isn't what it seems: The neoliberal centre has depended upon abstention and prevails amid disinterest

Macron's landslide was not quite what it appeared, exposing how neoliberal Centrism depends upon disinterest and abstention. Photograph: Emmanuel Macron campaign poster 'Macron President' in Paris by Lorie Shaull (License) (Cropped)

The rise of Macron was met with a chorus of celebration from some corners for the resurgence of the 'Centre'. In France, we are to believe, the neoliberal Centre has recovered. But has the centre really found a new revitalising note?

In the presidential election, Macron prevailed as the neoliberal Centrist candidate thanks to a number of factors: the collapse of social democracy, repeated Centre-Right scandals, and because the Far-Right was sufficiently repulsive.

Now, even with the Left non-committal, Macron did secure the support of around 45% of registered voters in the head-to-head with the Far Right. But was the high water mark.

At the legislative elections Macron's party, La Republic En Marche, took a landslide majority. Yet it came amid a low turnout. While his party took 49% of second round votes, just 43% of voters turned out - giving them the support of only about 20% of eligible voters.

The neoliberal Centre is holding on to power, but it doesn't seem to be the result of its own arguments. If anything, it seems as if the Centrists are standing still as the turbulent waters wash around them. As protest votes and popular dissensions of the Left and the Right ebb and flow, the stagnant Centre appears to rise or fall.

Just look at Italy. Despite losing a crucial referendum in December and resigning as Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi won back the leadership of the Partito Democratico in a landslide. And judging from the polls, he will likely return as Premier at the next election.

If he does, it would be explicitly at the head of a party of Renziani Centrists and neoliberals, looking to replicate Macron's success. That comes thanks to the Left-wing of the party going through with its threat to leave if Renzi won back the leadership.

Under former party leaders Pierluigi Bersani and Massimo D'Alema, the Centre-Left walked away to work towards concentrating all of the many Left factions - including their own Democratici e Progressisti vehicle - under a single progressive banner.

This move leaves Renzi as the undisputed leader of a definitively Centrist party. Matteo Renzi again proves himself to be - in the years of turmoil created by Berlusconi finally, if only partially, falling from grace - pretty much the last man standing.

But what else does Renzi have? Other that his political skill that earned him the nickname 'il Rottamore' - the scrapper. He lost the constitutional referendum on which he staked his Premiership and the Renziani approach has alienated the Centre-Left and driven them out of the party - much as the Hollande governments did and Macron risks doing with his programme.

Furthermore, it was his political skill - not electoral success - that saw him rise to the position of Premier, after a succession of resignations when the Democrats under Bersani failed to gain enough support to govern with it's Centre-Left platform in 2013.

While the Democrats had consistently polled well under Renzi, up on 2013, their lead has slipped and the recent turmoil has seen them fall into a neck and neck race with the populist anti-establishment party Movimento 5 Stella (M5S).

The sum of this is that in Italy, the 'third way' Centrism - blending social democracy and neoliberalism - may return to power with Renzi, but it's unlikely to do so with sweeping triumph. Again, the waters are moving and the Centrists are not the ones moving them.

In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte celebrated his party remaining the largest and the halting of the Far-Right advance. But the figures tell a different story. Between the coalition partners - the Centre-Right liberal-conservative VVD and the Dutch Labour Party PdvA - they lost 37 seats and 24% of the vote.

For Rutte's VVD, it was the failure of an alternative to muster sufficient support from a fractured and plural political landscape that has kept him in power: they remained the largest party with just 21% of the vote.

It will take an across the spectrum alliance of at least four parties to keep Rutte's VVD in office. While that kind of pluralism is a positive thing, it's not exactly evidence of a great Centre revival.

In Britain, the failure of the Liberal Democrats to increase their share of the vote reinforced the point.

By succeeding in getting people to engage with politics, to turnout and vote, Jeremy Corbyn shut down what appears to be the main avenue along which the neoliberal Centre has travelled: abstention.

If this is the case, it makes the pitch made by the Lib Dems over the last few elections and the New Labourite obsession misguided. Pitching to be the party of faceless bureaucrats, the party of government, the party of business, only seems to work if people have lost interest.

Could a new British party of the centre have done better than the Lib Dems? A party of economically neoliberal social democrats, uniting Labour MPs with some liberals and even some Tories, and pitching to as broad a base as possible, under a leader like Yvette Cooper?

The numbers don't really support it. Even with the Tories and Labour getting their largest vote share for some time, abstention was still the largest block. The reality is that Centrism doesn't seem to have a convincing story to tell and so stands still as events move around it.

Macron was the rallying point to see off a threat. And while Justin Trudeau did indeed lead the Liberals to a huge comeback and landslide majority in Canada in 2015, he did so with the support of just a quarter of eligible voters - the gift of an electoral system - against the waning power of an ever more rightward leaning government.

If Renzi wins back to the Premiership in Italy with effective power, it will also be likely thanks to an electoral system. And, in the Netherlands, Rutte held on thanks to support being fractured across the plural options.

While the Right rallies an angry minority around a crude nationalism that makes wild promises and the Left assembles behind a hopeful interventionism, the Centre mostly benefits from disengagement. The the relative recovery of the Centre comes to look more like a holding pattern.

This isn't the sign of a recovery - it's the absence of one.

The Centre remains with a hand on power because disengagement remains a real issue and neither a Left Alternative nor the angry Far Right have, so far, won over enough support with the broader public.

While this does seem to toll the bell for neoliberalism, Centrism need not necessarily follow it. There is a place for Centrism, but right now it seems like the Centre is struggling to understand itself.

The Centre is supposed to be about balance. About inclusion. That is not the same thing as 'equidistance'. And the occupation of the centre ground by neoliberalism is more about 'received wisdom', the present consensus, than the ideals of the Centre.

In a pluralist society, Centrism has an important role to play. It pursues a stake in society for people on all sides and tries to maximise the utility of the society - to ensure the maximum number of people enjoy the benefits.

What that can't mean is accepting conservative narratives on the economy, the trap that the heirs of New Labour have frequently fallen into. That centrism, of neoliberalism, has become like a technical government, a bureaucratic caretaker while we await something better.

Those that values the ideal of the Centre - inclusion - need to wake up. The revival of the Centre is not what it appears. The politics of management is offering nothing and standing still. People are ready to move. Centrists need an answer as to where.

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 - The Budget: Progressive optimism vs Tory pessimism

In the general election campaign so far, there's a determination on the Right to spread the idea that their own plans are sensible and that their opponent's are chaotic and don't add up. But that's a crudely simplistic narrative and it comes with a couple of main assumptions that need to be broken through.

On the first assumption: none of the six main parties in England, Wales and Scotland are calling for a drastic overhaul to Britain's economic system. On the second: most economic systems work on their own terms. The sums will add up, whoever is in government. The biggest difference between progressive and conservative versions is their contrasting optimism and pessimism.

While conservatives, and progressives, will try to make the management of the budget a question of competence, or a question of right and wrong answers, those are not the primary questions facing voters. The real question to consider first, is: what are you trying to achieve?

How Ideology affects Economics

All approaches to the economy are ideological: they propose a set of steps to follow, with an intended outcome - an intentional attempt at shaping society to maximise certain behaviours and to minimise others.

When looking at the pitches made by progressives and conservatives, there are two elements you should consider, one for each of the two main categories of public spending - Current and Capital.

For clarity: Current spending is the day-to-day spending on the departmental budgets, historically offset against government revenue. Capital spending is long term infrastructure investment, usually funded by government borrowing.

On Current spending, you need to consider the question of intervention vs laissez faire: do you consider government action in any given policy area to be helping or interfering?

On Capital spending, you need to consider whether to invest in the future or tackle public debt: do you consider public debt or out-of-date technology and buildings for schools, hospitals, or roads and rails for businesses, the bigger burden on the future?

These two questions are deeply connected.

How entwined they are can be illustrated by the long term plan pursued by the Tories. Planning to 'balance' the budget by having both Current and Capital spending offset by revenue, severely limits how much the government can do in the present and for the future. Even more so as they pursue a huge reduction in the proportion of Britain's GDP, the country's gross wealth, the government is spending.

Now, borrowing to fund Current spending, on the day to day department costs, would theoretically be adding to the public debt at the expense of the future (hence the Tories popular refrain about not burdening our children). But Labour - whether you take the vision for the treasury as assembled by Brown, Balls or McDonnell - has not and does not intend to do that.

Under Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the intention has been - from at least the leaderships of John Smith and Paddy Ashdown - to follow a Keynesian approach: to balance just Current spending against tax revenues, thereby not accumulating public debt to pay for the needs of the present.

This approach does, however, leave Capital spending to be funded by borrowing.

The reasoning behind this is that the longer term Capital spending behaves much differently to Current spending. For a government, borrowing is cheap and the added value created by using it for long term investment is huge - so much so that the actual cost of borrowing is ultimately offset by the increased economic growth that results, and the rise in tax revenue that follows.

How to fund investment

The progressive view of these budget questions has a particular focus on Capital spending, refusing the simplistic calculation that public debt equals a burden on the future. Public debts, within reason and where they result from investment in the future, are largely harmless.

But the negative impact of poor infrastructure, on every area of society, could be disastrous. Just look at the mess that resulted from outdated operating systems on NHS computers. But the same point extends to more mundane situations: old and crumbling school buildings, potholed and traffic strewn roads, ports with insufficient capacity, a telecommunications network that doesn't keep up with the needs of people and businesses.

There are, of course, always attempts at being clever in order to reduce borrowing for Capital projects, even when they aren't covered by tax revenues. New Labour tried something new, expanding on plans they inherited to seek out private investors for its controversial and now infamous 'Private Finance Initiatives', as a way to fund Capital spending without adding to the public debt.

The New Labour plan for private-funded public investment built hospitals - but the private sector expects returns. The PFIs left those institutions with the expectation to deliver astronomical returns on those investments - some £300bn all told - and private benefactors continue to receive interest payments from hospital trusts in the hundreds of millions.

In a way, New Labour's approach resembles the Coalition plan for funding higher education - shifting a public debt, weighing on the Current budget, onto citizens as private debt. In a stroke, a chunk of Current spending and public debt was privatised.

But like the burdens that were shifted onto the backs of hospital trusts, the treasury saw a clever accounting trick,  not the social impact of burdensome debt - though at least more limitations were put in place to protect students than the hospital trusts received with PFIs. In either case, the financial burden ends up on the public books anyway.

The Conservatives plan was to oppose borrowing and fund both Current and Capital only with tax revenues. From a progressive view this was reckless, as it would result in one of two outcomes: it would mean slashing spending on people's wellbeing in the present, while still having them pay tax to fund Capital projects that will never bear fruit for them, or it would mean slashing both to endlessly pay off mostly harmless debt.

The underlying motivations for conservatives to pursue this path is as simple as 'faith' in the market. A belief that private schemes are better than public action - seeing public action as interference that just distorts outcomes. Instead of taking the advantage of scale provided by the collective public option, where resources are pooled to maximise their use, conservatives prefer personal private schemes of insurance to pay for services.

How the government finances stand

The overriding aim of this privatising conservative mentality is to fight against 'dependence'. But to pursue that low tax, low interference, approach, that promotes private action, is not compatible with maintaining well funded public services. At some point, something will have to give. To emphasise the point, consider how the public finances stand after seven years of Tory government.

Current spending stands this past year at around £720 billion to £740 billion in revenue, while Capital spending sits at around £80 billion. As the Tories combine Current and Capital spending to calculate the deficit, the public debt increased by about £59 billion.

That will mean, in the coming years - helped perhaps if revenues rise due to economic recovery or growth - 'balancing' the budget will still require a combination of tax rises and budget cuts, to both Capital and Current spending, amounting to over £60 billion a year - and perhaps more, if the aim is to produce a surplus with which to pay down the public debt.

We know that some £22 billion is to come from the NHS, through the finding of 'savings'. Another £3 billion is coming from schools, thanks to recent funding changes. More will come from the welfare freeze. There is clearly an intention to clear some of the cost of social care off the public books by making middle class homeowners pay with their assets. But that still leaves a lot of cuts.

As for the Liberal Democrat and Labour plans, both are actually fairly similar and neither are that tremendously radical. In fact, they're downright sensibly Keynesian. Both intend to balance the Current, day-to-day departmental, spending against tax revenues - with modest tax rises, mostly on the rich, making more room for manoeuvre.

And here is something interesting. On the measure of balancing the Current budget: it's already balanced. In fact it's in surplus. By some £20 billion. It is projected to be in surplus by about the same amount next year. The previous year the Current budget was only £3 billion in deficit. If the job was to rebalance government spending and revenue, the job is nearly three years done.

With their commitments fully costed, either Labour or the Lib Dems would come into government with a very positive outlook on the public finances - seeing the public books as being in a healthy state. The positivity of either of these parties would alone be a drastic turn around from the doomsaying Tories, who promise nothing but ever more cuts.

It is remarkable the affect that optimism and positivity alone can have in economics, particularly in contrast to the Tories doom and gloom and neverending warnings. But the renewed public investment, called for by all progressive parties, could provide a huge long term boost to Britain. From the mass building of new homes to long term support for innovative new industries - particularly in green energy - there would be a lot to be optimistic about.

How we frame debt matters

As for the deficit and debt? Well, how these are drawn up may have to change when the Tories are eventually ousted, because the way we frame these matters. Conservatives have been very successful at getting into circulation the idea that fiscal credibility means opposing public debt. Progressives must counter that narrative by reframing the ideas.

If the value added by Capital spending vastly outweighs its cost - thus removing it as a factor in balancing a budget - it might well be worth starting to calculate it separately from the deficit and debt which results from the Current budget. That means separating out public debt into two categories: productive Capital debt and unproductive deficit debt.

The progressive aim will be responsibility with productive Capital debt and credibility in tackling and avoiding the unproductive Current deficits and debt. Consider: In the three years between 2015 and 2018, there will have been a Current budget surplus of £47bn. The deficit in that period, that Tories use to justify austerity, is the result of £233bn in Capital spending - investment in long term projects.

That means, at the end of that three year period, around 12% of our total public debt is just from that productive long term investment. When you consider the long term, positive impact of that Capital spending, it makes the public debt a lot less intimidating. It also resets priorities.

How we move forward

To be a progressive is to be an optimist - to be believe that people have the power to change things for the better. While government spending is not the be-all-end-all mechanism for that, progressives argue that it has an important role to play and is currently being poorly utilised.

There are huge challenges to face and most them require sturdy long term commitment. Poverty needs to be addressed with affordable housing and energy, and with compassionate welfare that gets people back on their own feet.

Britain's imbalanced economy needs restructuring around innovative new industries and businesses, spread out across the regions, with green energy power them and the technical skills to run them.

The public sector is able to deliver that long term investment in a way private finance has not yet been able to match. It is part of the solution. The next step is to grasp that idea and to pursue it with positivity and energy. Progress is possible and austerity not inevitable.