Mandates and Majorities: May's abuse of the FTPA to protect her minority government has broken the Parliamentary system

Theresa May continues to cling to power. Despite promising to resign to retain hold of the leadership of her party, despite being defeated on her Finance Bill, despite a historic defeat in Parliament, May utterly refuses to compromise or alter course.

You would think, from her actions, that the Prime Minister sits on an electoral majority with a clear mandate. She doesn't. She heads an internally divided minority government, with no electoral majority - which means she has no mandate, let alone a clear one.

And the arithmetic of Parliament is divided too. Parties are divided and across a number of different lines, not just Brexit vs Remain. Yet the Prime Minister refuses to accept the fundamental fact that Parliament is right to rein her in and take a leading role - instead calling them rebels and traitors.

The big question is how can Theresa May act like she has so much more power than she does? That would be the disastrous affect that the Fixed Term Parliaments Act (FTPA) has had on the constitution.

When it was first introduced, there were positives. A useful restriction on executive power, such as limiting government abuse of it's executive powers over calling elections brought by setting fixed dates for elections - and how restricting how they could be called.

During the Coalition, this was intended to keep the alliance between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats stable - with neither party, especially the Lib Dems, able to hold the other hostage to an election over policy squabbles.

But there have been unintended consequences. The act has extraordinarily empowered minority governments, changing the conditions of a government's fall to make it overwhelmingly difficult for Parliament to vote out a minority government.

This has become a crucial factor in the present consitutional crisis. Theresa May cannot govern, especially on the key piece of her legislative agenda, and yet cannot be toppled. Using the FTPA, she has near single-handedly brought the functioning of the Parliamentary system to a halt.

The ridiculous nature of what the FTPA and May's use of it have done is shown in how her government survived last week: despite the largest margin of defeat for any government on Parliamentary record, a critical and embarrasing disaster, she survived the vote of no confidence the following day.

How? Thanks to the Act, she was able to separate her key legislation from confidence in the government - literally, separate being able to competently govern from whether or not they should govern. As a result, her own MPs rejected her Brexit deal in a humiliation, demonstrating their inability to govern, but then voted to keep themselves in power.

This needs to be addressed by future governments. It cannot be that a government can stand, despite dmonstrably being unable to govern. While that is a common occurance in the American system, it is not in the Westminster system of Parliamentary democracy - where the fundamental principle has always been that a government that cannot govern, does not.

Without a majority, Theresa May doesn't have a mandate. She doesn't have the authority to force through her deal - especially when it has been rejected multiple times. However, unfortunately, the Parliamentary system has been hindered and restricted in it's ability to prevent her pursuing this course.

The Alternative Debunk: Populism, democracy and where it ends

In refusing to rule out further votes on her Brexit Deal - should it be defeated in the Commons - Prime Minister Theresa May has doubled down on a stubborn stance. Adamant that she has a Brexit mandate, May won't countenance a challenge to it.

Whether she likes it or not, that puts the Prime Minister in the same camp has the hardcore Brexiters, who argue that the first referendum was the final say - however flatly untrue that stance may be when it comes to UK constitutional conventions.

In a time when interest and participation in democracy has been slipping, when democracy has been increasingly under assault from fake news and far right populism, it is unhelpful when the Prime Minister coopts their arguments.

Populism and democracy

Populism is a word that gets thrown around in the media, being used to refer to popular movements of left as well as right. But it's not accurate to equate the two.

On the left, popular movements are increasingly horizontal, cooperative and reflective of a belief not in a single struggle, but in the commonality between different struggles to shake off inequalities that affect people based on their identities - ethnicity, sexuality, gender - and stand together in solidarity.

On the right, popular movements are emotional, exclusionary and 'competitive' - highlighting difference between groups of people and pitting them against each other, even against good sense. These are the so-called 'populist' movements. It is a populist idea that one vote is enough to settle something in a democracy.

Like he idea that the referendum ended the conversation, that the will of the people was crystalised in one popular vote - which is clearly undermined by the fact that any political party could stand at a future election on a manifesto to stop Brexit, and upon winning a majority have the right to implement it.

The populist sentiment is a trap that Theresa May fell into the moment she tried to claim the referendum mandate for her own government. It was aggravated by the fact that she hasn't been able to covert the referendum result into a Parliamentary majority - functionally necessary to delivering any change.

With the referendum vote in her pocket, Theresa May triggered a snap election and stood on a party manifesto that promised to deliver Brexit. But she failed to win a majority. And in that failure was exposed the problem with the referendum in the first place: there wasn't, and still isn't, a party of Brexit with a Parliamentry mandate to deliver it.

Lincoln and the Union

In a democracy, the ideal is that even those who lose out most in the result of a poll will be able to appreciate the importance of respecting the will of the majority - it's a key aspect of democracy. Populists have been quick to label their Remainer opponents as undemocratic sore losers.

However, with the Brexit referendum, the populist Brexiter side has exploited their temporary majority and failed to respect the fact that majoritarianism is two sided: yes, the will of the majority needs to be respected. But democracy also means that the will of the majority can change. There is no final say.

The trouble with that fact is that it doesn't quite have the emotional reasonance of 'one vote and done' - it doesn't feel as good. It doesn't feel as cathartic. Yet it's at the core of why a minority should respect the will of the majority. Some day, you may change their minds. You may be the majority.

In an old biography of Abraham Lincoln, there is a discussion of his view of the importance of the political union and disavowal of secession. He had questioned the right to secession, asking, "Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain itself?"

Following Lincoln's stance against secession as undermining a democratic political union, his biographer asks:

"...if by democratic government is meant the rule of the majority, may there not be occasions when the majority is tyrannical or where the division of opinion between majority and minority is so acute, that the minority is entitled to leave?"

Lincoln had argued that adhering to majority rule, properly held in restraint by constitutional checks and balances, was not only a good, but a safeguard against the severed consequences of undermining majority rule - chaos, disorder, the threat of war.

As Lincoln said, "that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets." To Lincoln, elections and majority rule held out always the possibility that the majority might be persuaded and would change it's mind at a subsequent election.

That while a minority must adapt and integrate to the majority conditions - and could, perhaps should, be helped along to do so - it would still be able to seek to peacefully win over the majority. Laid plain, that democracy, that majority rule, was never to be seen as final.

May and the Union

Theresa May has her own Unionism. For her part, it has driven her to pursue a particularly single-minded path. One that does not really account for, especially, the divergent path upon which Scotland is travelling compared to the rest of the UK.

Theresa May has caught herself in a difficult position, of jealously holding one union while dissolving another - in opposing one secession while enacting another, a confusing circumstance of competing sovereignties.

Arguing against dissolving the British Union, while also arguing for the permanence of the referendum vote, May finds herself caught in an inconsistent position - that the Union cannot be dissolved, but it also will not allow for the changing of minds.

That position undermines the point of democratic majority rule. As Lincoln argued, the preservation of the Union is in large part achieved by acknowledging that there is no end point to a debate - that there is no definitive, inalienable vote.

Theresa May has pulled out all stops to protect her position, the mandate she claims and the policies she pursues, especially Brexit. The result has been that she has turned to the arguments populist right for justification of her actions - the Brexit was a final vote, there can be no change of position.

Legitimising the positions of the populist right is a very dangerous game to play, but as Conservative leader Theresa May inherited a legacy of taking advantage of the over loud and amplified grumbling and scapegoating of the far right.

The Conservatives have spent a long time courting the rise of the far right, feeding off the populist energy to attack Labour and the Liberals. But it's a source of energy that comes with a high cost, giving light and air to emotive scapegoating.

From the beginning, the Conservative plan for a referendum - spawned of a need to satisfy the right-wing energy it was exploiting - didn't really factor in the possibility that the Leave campaign would win the public vote.

Conservative leader David Cameron resigned, having backed Remain as the Prime Minister in a deeply pro-Remain Parliament. With no Parliamentary majority for Brexit, the country was thrown into political turmoil - which May has tried to navigate.

Her failing was to try and do so without a proper constitutional mandate, gained in the form of a Parliamentary majority from an election with an explicit Brexit manifesto commitmnt. She waited too long to pursue that, trusting instead to exluding Parliament in favour of using executive power to forge ahead.

Democracy never ends

When the question is settled, the post-Brexit Union will be defined by this period in time. Disrespect for democratic process, political division, ignoring or exploiting well-established constitutional conventions - all of these things will feed into the new shape of the British Union, whether it remains European for the long haul or ultimately pulls away.

Theresa May has allowed the far-right populist view of democracy - as a competition not a compromise, pitting ideas against each other for mastery - to infect the mainstream and take route in the public consciousness. These represent lasting damages inflicted in pursuit of short term political goals. May will have to reflect on that.

The reality is that the referendum vote could never have been binding, but the view it expressed needed to be respected. That has never really happened. Theresa May and the Conservatives didn't go to the electorate for a Brexit mandate until a long time after the fact. By then, moods had begun to shift.

Brexit was always undermined by the absense of a mandate to deliver it - a party, or parties, explicitly elected on a manifesto commitment to deliver it, awarded the power by the electorate to do so in the form of a Parliamentary majority.

Now, with the deal an unsupportable mess, public opinion is polling as even less inclined. And Parliament remains ill-disposed towards Brexit. Saying that there is no justification for further votes undemocratically protects the power of a majority that may now have become the minority.

Is a second referendum, the People's Vote, the answer?

The first referendum resolved little, as it didn't produce the political conditions within the constitutional framework to deliver on the 'Brexit mandate'. Can another referendum do anything more than simply affirm one of the positions?

Another referendum will still need the explicit mandate from an election to deliver on the public will, if it is to have the legitimate power to implement the decision. In the end, the only way out of this mess is to return to democracy.

Populism sees an end to democracy in the satisfaction of it's own will - the realisation of it's own supremacy. But democracy, to be a valid basis for political union, has no end point. There is no definitive say. Only limited mandates that expire.

The Brexit mandate is close to expiration - largely thanks to the failures of the Conservative party, who brought forward the first referendum and failed to empower it. What comes next must be instructed and empowered by the people.

May calls on MPs to get on with Brexit and move on - but it's her government's own doing that it's consumed all political space

This afternoon, Theresa May addressed the Commons to present the terms she has negotiated for Britain's exit from the European Union. As may well have been expected at this point, it did not get a warm reception. All the big hitters were queued up to get in their licks.

After yet another hostile session, the Prime Minister may very well have been feeling like the constituents she has now taken to quoting: ready to just get on with Brexit and move on. But it's the PM's own approach that has brought us to this Parliamentary impasse.

A referendum, a snap election and two years of legislative time have been poured into Brexit - along with billions from the treasury and repeated knocks taken by the economy with the instability caused by each new jarring announcement.

In that time, domestic policy has taken the backseat. That has been a disaster both in terms of scrutiny and delivery.

The government's flagship welfare 'reform' the Universal Credit has rolled from one crisis to another. Supposed to be the consolidation of a number of different welfare programmes into a more efficient and affordable system, it has faced ever mounting problems.

The minister who had been the driving force behind it quit when he was severely undercut on funding. The attached fitness assessments have been derided as cruel. Even a rapporteur for the United Nations has deeply criticised the misery inflicted upon the most vulnerable by a government pursuing ideological ends.

The government has claimed that Universal Credit has driven people into work, but this welfare system - underfunded, misadministered, and leaving vulnerable people at the mercy of growing debts - can only have motivated people in the worst way, with employment statistics covering an explosion in working poverty.

And those are just the headlines. The government has not done enough on housing. It has not done enough to meet environmental and energy targets. It has not done enough to encourage an economic system that can lift ordinary people out of poverty - on welfare or in work.

When Theresa May talks of constituents telling her to get on with Brexit, she may be reframing disgruntlement. It's May's government that has turned politics in Britain into nothing but Brexit - and in the process has managed to deeply divide the country.

With so many domestic issues in need of attention, Brexit needs to be settled. But what Parliamentarians can't do is make a hasty decision under pressure - for which the Prime Minister is pushing.

May's government has put us here and shouldn't be allowed to use it to sneak out from under their own mess.moving towards resolving the deeply important and long term domestic issues that have gone unattended under May's watch.

A deficit of leadership in Britain, where compromise is a dirty word

May and Corbyn, two leaders trapped by their unwillingness to compromise.

Parliament returns to sitting this week after the Summer Recess. Barely is the week underway and the sheer lack of effective political leadership is again on display. In her latest attempt at stamping some authority on proceedings, this weekend Prime Minister Theresa May announced that she was taking a stance of "No Compromise" with the European Union on Brexit.

This is an extraordinary thing for a Prime Minister to say about a negotiation - not least a negotiation with an ally, to work out a positive future relationship. Where is the leadership is no existent vetos? Theresa May's "We shall not budge" attitude serves no purpose in a two-way negotiation - especially not when the 'No Deal' outcome is so filled with uncertainty and tipped towards unfavourable outcomes.

Yes, leaders need to stand up for the wellbeing of their communities. To represent their views and their wants. But that also means sitting down with the representatives of other communities to find common ground. How can that be done without compromise?

This isn't the first time that Conservative leaders have waded into these waters. David Cameron tried to veto a European Union decision during his tenure and they simply carried on the conversation without the UK. Yet it speaks to the deficit of effective leadership in politics in Britain that Theresa May's Premiership goes on without effective challenge - a deficit both within her party and across on the opposition benches.

Which brings us to Jeremy Corbyn. It's hard to write a long hard sigh into an article.

The anti-semitism scandal is drawing some stark lines, producing some very divisive responses. Leaving aside the questions over the validity and seriousness, and the origin, of the accusations - which range in people's perceptions from legitimate outrage by nervous communities, to opportunistic misrepresentation by disgruntled factions - there has been no redress.

What is unarguable is that Corbyn has not handled the accusations and the barrage of press. Neither well, nor poorly. He just hasn't handled it. He has an ongoing approach to the media of non-engagement. That is a part of his leadership - a rejection of a mistrusted mass media. But all the Corbyn leadership has done is vacate the space. They haven't sidelined it.

Labour has distinct internal divisions and opponents of Corbyn's leadership keep finding mud to sling - or, perhaps, stories that look enough like mud. And every media space the Labour leadership leaves vacant,  is another waiting to be filled by those driving a wedge into the party.

It is a game they don't want to play, and it is possible to appreciate why, but politics isn't just about what you believe - in some raw statement of ideology. It is also about what you are seen to believe. And this second one is that which people frequently remember, and shapes the headlines they read - the breaking news that hits their feeds, which they see but don't read.

On both sides there is an unwillingness to compromise. An unwillingness to take a seat at the table and play the game. Yes the game is treacherous and probably rigged. But refusing to engage does nothing. Refusal just leaves the game just as it is. Refusal to lose prevents any chance of winning.

In isolation lies only ruin and hollow honour.

Election 2018? May government has backed itself into a corner again and again, only to slip away to fight another day

Will there be an election this year? That's the big question on the tongues of everyone interested in British politics right now.

Theresa May's big effort to bring together her party - to bring it into line with the 'Brexit mandate' she claimed and coopted for herself - with a plan for Brexit backfired spectacularly. There have been big profile resignations, rumour of a leadership challenge and a divisions are now as wide as they have ever been.

For their part, Labour are raring to go. They're ahead in the polls and full of the belief that their poll lead will only be the starting position for another election campaign that will gather steam and see another surge.

However. Theresa May has so far managed to steer her government through one crisis after another - into and out of one corner after another - and cling to power. Even as each time pundits say a leadership challenge is brewing, and perhaps an election is not far away.

In fact, this government has lasted far longer than expected and predicted, considering it's disastrous election campaign, it's weakness, it's divisions, it's lack of a majority. But clinging on in that state surely cannot last.

There have been other minority governments that have limped along like this. John Major's minority government, as Tory seats were whittled away in by-elections and defections, lasted just four months. With a series of pacts with other parties, the Callaghan minority government kept going for two years, but lost heavily when it finally reached an election.

Theresa May again faces divisions that seem insurmountable - her Brexit white paper having exposed, rather than resealed, the cracks. Tory Brexiters are unhappy and so are the Tory Remainers, with one wing preparing to challenge May's leadership and the other starting to call for a second referendum on the final Brexit deal.

But the May govt still has, for the moment, it's deal with the DUP intact. And she has another thing on her side. For a year, May has survived by defusing crises with dsitractions, often simply waiting it out until everyone gets bored and moves on, and with a sheer stubborn refusal to accept the reality of her government's weak position.

Yet it is that weak position itself that may very well be what helps her fend off the threat of an election. The Tories see the polls and know that Labour is so close to taking power - and the one thing the Tories can unite on is not letting Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell into No.10 and No.11 Downing Street. And their internal squabbles are making their dread outcome a realistic prospect.

What weighs in favour of the Tories is that there can be a change of Prime Minister, even of the government, without an election. It is a fact that the Tories will lean upon heavily in the coming months, if a leadership challenge emerges. They will be eager let everyone know that a new leader is to ensure continuity, rather than to change direction, to minimise claims that an election must surely follow.

The reality facing progressives is that, even as weak as the May government is, it's fate is still in the hands of the Conservatives themselves. With a defiant vote by Tory rebels to force an election unlikely, it will take a sustained swell of public pressure to force the Tories into a premature election.

Corbyn and McDonnell are victims of their own success. They have gotten Labour so close, and leading in the polls, that whatever else the government does, it knows it can't risk an election. The weakened government can do nothing but limp on.

Industrial Strategy: May government needs to match it's words with public investment if it wants to unlock missions potential

When Theresa May took over the leadership of the Conservative Party, she heralded a change of approach. There has been a lot of talk of government being willing to get more involved - on May's part, expressed in her insistence on restoring the Unionist part of the party's legacy, including invoking Joseph Chamberlain and a more activist government.

The issuing of an industrial strategy was seen as a statement of intent - an act of intervention that broke with the pro-business, laissez faire brand of 'liberal conservatism' of her predecessors David Cameron and George Osborne.

However, follow through has been limited. So too has money. Once published, the government's strategy looked less about shaping markets and supporting innovators, and more about propping up Britain's failing industries with deals and deregulation.

Theresa May's latest step was to reference the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IPPR), who along with it's director Mariana Mazzucato have been pressing hard for a reshaping of how we understand the role of government in innovation. But her warm words toward the potential of strategic missions will mean nothing without the funding to match.

Mazzucato's work has argued, the state can be the risk taking pioneer - a role expected of the private sector, but which it is never willing to fulfil. By funding R&D, by offering long term, stable public investment, government can open up and shape entirely new markets.

But it can't do this without money - at either end. Projects need investment and support to be there from the start and need the private sector not be able to simply walk away with unlimited potential earnings at the end, with no restitution for the public role. Big ideas should fund new big ideas.

Theresa May's government, however, has yet to be willing to match big words with big funding. Today's speech was no different. There was a lot of praise for public institutions that engage in research, but little mention for how they have been strangled of funding.

May set out her four missions - within four 'grand challenges' facing Britain taken from the Industrial Strategy - and praised the potential of missions to drive innovation forward. But that was the extent of it.

Both the IPPR and the thinktank OECD have argued that increased public investment, and the infrastructure to implement it like a National Investment Bank, is a golden opportunity that the UK is not taking advantage of - despite Britain investing well below 3% of GDP.

Without funding, potential will remain unexplored. Mission statements represent step one in a coordinated approach. The Prime Minister herself acknowledged that progress is born from collaboration and cooperation. There needs to be a lot more of it, and something more: coordination.

Theresa May is committing to the big visions/big speeches aspect of the call for strategic thinking. Will the government wake up and start to put in place the rest of the infrastructure needed to maximise the potential that can be unlocked by long term strategic thinking?

Restoring sovereignty: Syria executive decision shows that restoring powers, a core Brexit promise, is less about Brussels than Cabinet government at Westminster

The central promise of Brexit was that it would restore the UK's sovereignty. That political process in Britain would be 'reclaimed', for the people. Yet the central organ of political sovereignty, Parliament, continues to be sidelined.

The executive decision by the Prime Minister to order the Syria strikes, without Parliamentary approval, shows we're still a long way from restoring Parliamentary Sovereignty. At Westminster, the centralisation of power is still the rule.

For years politicians of all stripes in Britain spun the illusion that Westminster was shackled. Europe, largely without a voice in the British political media, took the blame for the intractability of Westminster.

Saying goodbye to Brussels means it can no longer be used as an excuse. Politicians will need to either find a new scapegoat, or finally get on with much needed reform - like turning back the tide of centralisation, that has concentrated power and money in Britain a long, long way from the hands of the people.

Reluctance to reform remains. The Conservatives in government under Theresa May would rather use contemptible words like 'betray' about their opposition - officially titled, it should be noted, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition - and accuse them of 'doing down Britain' when they dare to criticise the government.

Brussels may be swapped out for a different scapegoat - whether it's Brexiters calling opponents 'enemies of the people' and 'undemocratic', or the Labour right-wing painting Corbyn, Momentum and the Left in much the same light - but the result is the same. The people are told: there is no alternative.

This is the theme behind all of the scapegoating. The centralising, globalising, marketising, status quo must continue. There is no alternative. In Europe or out, Westminster won't brook the fragmentation of the political power that keeps us on that path. It can't be considered, because the status quo might also fragment.

The decision to take military action without a Parliamentary debate is a whole matter unto itself. Two previous debates on bombing in Syria were split. Action against Assad was rejected in 2013, but action against Daesh was passed in 2015 - though not without criticism from the Foreign Affairs committee over the evidence base.

This time, the process was ignored - perhaps because it could not be counted on to give the 'right' answer. The dangers inherent to the choice to avoid a debate are real enough for the Syria issue alone - there is a clear consensus that military interventions come with substantial risk of creating ungoverned spaces that open the door organised criminals and terrorists.

But there is an underlying point of deep importance for Britain and the idea of Parliamentary Sovereignty. Executive power was used and Parliament was left out of a critical decision - and with it, so too was democratic oversight. Again.

It is easy, and perhaps tempting for some, to pin this all on Theresa May. She has pursued a path in power of taking advantage of every executive privilege, every obscure power. She avoids oversight. Denies transparency, at every turn.

But Theresa May is a Prime Minister inheriting a system and exploiting it, working in a narrow political moment. The problem is bigger than her and is the legacy of her predecessors, with no distinction for parties and historical circumstances.

It does not bode well that Parliament again finds itself frozen out of a critical debate. The wielding of unchecked executive power is not the restoration of sovereignty. It is that from which sovereignty must be restored.

Intimidation in Public Life: When creating new offences, care must be taken that there are no unintended consequences

On Tuesday, Theresa May used the centenary of women's suffrage to announce plans to implement a new offence named Intimidation in Public Life. The move has is based on recommendations in a report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

As the Prime Minister said in her speech, it is unsettling that vitriol towards public figures, particularly in politics, is overwhelmingly directed towards women. This has to be addressed. There's really no two ways about that.

But is a new offence, of intimidating a politician or candidate, the answer? Before creating new offences like 'Intimidation in Public Life', there needs to be careful consideration.

Are there laws that already cover this? What are we making illegal? Are we creating new problems?

Yes, free speech is all too often of recent used as a cover, a screen to ensure freedom from the consequences of speech.

And yet, remember that in 2016 a young female student was censured because an MP and a University didn't, wilfully or out of ignorance, understand a meme.

Ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye, when speaking at a Leveson Inquiry hearing on the phone tapping scandal, said that:

"Statutory legislation is not required and most of the heinous crimes that came up and have made such a splash in front of this inquiry have already been illegal - contempt of court is illegal, phone tapping is illegal, policemen taking money is illegal - all of these things don't need a code, we already have laws for them."

It's something we need to remember when policy may be adopted as a reaction - such as to the incident at a Jacob Rees-Mogg talk at the University of the West of England, to which this announcement has been unsurprisingly strapped.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life have produced an in depth report. It makes for interesting reading. There are important recommendations to consider. One of them is that they report that the criminal law is basically fine.

They committee issues a bipartisan call for the major players - the big political parties, the police, the media - to show leadership and work together in cross-party solidarity.

In terms of legislation, the committee recommends a strictly electoral offence of intimidation and action to hold social media services liable for content posted on their platforms.

The recommendations of the committee are focused, strictly limited and lean towards better use of current tools - not least of which is the need for major bodies to challenge bad behaviour. Even their recommendation for a new offence they subject to the condition of consultation and comes across as a call for sterner sentencing when the target is a public figure.

Prime Minister Theresa May, however, has been criticised in the past for having a 'cavalier' attitude to civil rights and a well documented history for pursuing a path to public order through heavy-handed surveillance.

Unsurprisingly, her announcement is already being dissected by rights groups, such as Liberty, who are already expressing their concerns.

The report does not call for a heavy-hand. In her speech, May said that she would consult on the proposed new intimidation offence. Considered, tentative steps are appreciated. The way forward must be careful and measured. And, perhaps, even left a path untaken.

Last year, May let Brexit overshadow much bigger priorities - that can't continue in 2018

Theresa May's government scraped through 2017. After so very nearly sinking themselves with an unnecessary and opportunistic election, the May Ministry survived a number of crises and scandals to make it into 2018.

However, all of that minority government firefighting leaves little time for governing - and what little time the May government had was gobbled up by Brexit. In 2018, it seems likely that this pattern will continue and Brexit will deny sorely needed attention to far more pressing matters.

The government made it clear this was how things would be when they announced their unambitious Queens Speech, with their pledges now just watered down versions of their manifesto and spread thin over two years - so the government could focus on Brexit.

Even those pledges that did survive have made little progress.

The proposed Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill has yet to make it's appearance - while a few elements are cropping up in other bills, like issues affecting tenancy. The draft Tenant Fees Bill was only published in November, with the Committee of Communities and Local Government still gathering evidence.

Both of these will have to wait until 2018 is well underway before they see action and - the Tenant Fees Bill in particular - is going to be a hit with a lot of lobbying before it reaches its final form. It already largely conforms to present market standards that align far more landlords interests than tenants.

Promises on electric cars made it into the cutdown Queen's Speech, but only translated into £500m for charging points in the budget. A High Speed 2 rail pledge followed on the heels of an announcement to cut rail works plans for Wales and the North. Electrification estimates tripled in cost from £900mn to £2.8bn, so were pushed back, and are now cancelled. They were not offset by the less than £2bn in the budget to be split between the transport budgets of six city regions.

Repeated promises of action on homebuilding have born little fruit. The budget offered little but work arounds and tweaks, all attempts to nudge the housing sector rather than take action. It's unlikely anyone will be holding their breath that this will change in 2018.

Even the government's deeply prioritised Brexit made slow progress.

Negotiations were a tortuous embarrassment, with the government talking itself in circles of redlines - that could do nothing to change the fact that, despite having ruled out accepting the EU's position, they had little option other than to accept it.

And was only the preliminaries, getting the UK government to honour its word and its commitments. Concerns will be high as the UK government moves into the next phase, which includes trying to push through the Brexit Bills - domestic elements of the exit process.

Concern is rooted in the unending determination of the government to limit oversight and transparency in everything they do. May's team particularly want a free hand to negotiate future trade deals, awakening fears of shady deals with human rights abusers that undercut basic standards of workers' rights and quality of goods.

Fears have not been assuaged by the obvious lack of planning. Are there impact studies, or not? The government has gone out of their way to avoid reassuring anyone with any kind of data or fact.

One of the few part of the government's plans for post-Brexit to have been discussed was for agriculture post-Brexit - previewed over the Christmas-New Year week by Michael Gove. He made a pledge of funds to incentivise environmentally friendly land management, but concerns remain over trade deals undermining farmers.

The Tories made a huge mistake becoming embroiled in Brexit and Theresa May doubled down on it. Now, important domestic matters have been deprioritised. A second consecutive winter of the NHS in crisis should be considered an omen of what to expect in public services in the year ahead.

While the Tories have been playing at being 'statesmen', pouring their attention into Brexit - a policy that is epochal for all the wrong reasons - they have let domestic matters slide into chaos.

The NHS is cash starved and stretched beyond capacity and the best that the government was able to say was that the tens of thousands of cancelled operations 'were all part of the plan'. What kind of planning is that? Why would that be reassuring?

It is worth remembering that while Churchill led Britain through the war and the Tories held the outward-looking Great Offices of State, they lost the election held at the war's end. They were beaten by Clement Atlee and Labour, who had busied themselves on the Home Front - in the Home Affairs Ministry, with Agriculture and Fisheries, Education, Fuel, Labour, Pensions and the Board of Trade.

It is a dangerous move for any government to get caught playing statesman and forget to tend to the mundane matters of governing.

Housing, healthcare, welfare. All of these matters need determined attention in 2018 - and all of them are intricately entwined with rights, conditions and pay in the workplace. Domestically, Britain has become an anxious and precarious place under the Tories' idle supervision. How much longer can a blind eye be tolerated?

The government social mobility commission resigns in protest at lack of progress on 75th anniversary of the Beveridge Report

Photograph: Steps to Success from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

The government's Social Mobility Commission has chosen, whether by coincidence or for significance, the 75th anniversary of the Beveridge Report to stand down in protest against a failure to make the promised progress towards a 'fairer Britain'.

Chaired by Alan Milburn, a former Labour minister, the Social Mobility Commission was set up under David Cameron and Nick Clegg and the Coalition. It's remit was to monitor government progress in tackling child poverty and ensuring opportunity.

However, 75 years after William Beveridge published his report on the welfare of Britain, this is still an unequal country. Over time, government's Labour and Conservative have struggled to match Beveridge's aims.

Milburn and the commission felt that progress had come to a halt altogether. At the heart of the problem, for all of these governments over time, is that the problems, identified in the Beveridge report, have been moved around rather than solved.

Greater wealth, generated in the particular since the 1970s, has not been shared. Rather it has been concentrated on a narrow few. The appearance of greater affluence has come largely courtesy of greater debt - the roots of further crises to come.

Public health has been improved by the National Health Service, but that institution has become a teetering colossus in need of a fresh new commitment, even as a crisis of mental illness is only beginning to be understood.

A new commitment is also needed to education. Britain is still short of the level of literacy needed to match its social mediums - in this case, the need is for broad computer literacy in an age of escalating technological developments.

As Beveridge struggled to find a housing solution in his day, so it remains a source of massive exploitation today. Homes are expensive to buy, and expensive and insecure to rent. Homebuilding has come close to a grinding halt, particularly homes for social rent.

That is the first four of Beveridge's five 'Great Evils': Want, Disease, Ignorance and Squalor - for which precarity has become the word of the day. But what of Idleness?

Unemployment remains. The target for Beveridge was below 3%, but it remains over 4% despite the highest number of people in employment ever

- suggesting the underlying proportions are not changing. Welfare and debt traps are inescapable for the poorest as jobs pay too little and are too insecure, leaving even households with two people in employment struggling and working poverty a very real problem.

And today, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation released a report detailing an increase in the overall number of children (up 400,000) and pensioners (up 300,000) in poverty - just in the last four years.

Beveridge's word, Idleness, covers a more painful reality where social mobility is hard to attain - where the poor are poor because they began their lives poor; because every step on the path that work provides out of poverty offers only a precarious footing.

Milburn has announced an intention to set up a new and independent social mobility institute. An independent perspective is important and all parties must be held to account.

But many of these post-Beveridge Great Evils are problems we have already known about. The next step for progressives is to start investing in the solutions, rather than continuing to play partisan games and moving them about.

What ideas are out there? On housing, the Scottish Government have just brought into force a new law that improves security of tenure for renters, and basic income is being given a trial in a number of cities and countries around the world.

There are ideas out there. Progressives need to back them and start fighting precarity, that has become the by-word on all fronts.

Government, Parliament and the Centralisation of Power: If stability is what you want, you must resist the Government's attempts to strip power from Parliament

Parliament is back in session this week and the neverending turmoil inside the Conservative Party continues. In doing so, it exposes one of the primary weaknesses of a presidential system - and one of the reasons why the UK doesn't have one.

Or rather, why the UK doesn't have a presidential system in theory, at least. During the Tory conference, Theresa May's disastrous speech contained an apology for running too presidential an election campaign. But the grounds for such a campaign have been long in the preparing and only exposes the dramatic shift towards the centralising of decision-making at westminster.

This is a trend stretching back decades and is one of those trends for which New Labour were particularly criticised for not reversing. Even while some powers have been devolved, the Cabinet has continued to accumulate power at the expense of Parliament.

Theresa May's Government has threatened the most drastic veer into excluding Parliament in recent times, with parts of the Brexit Bill. The bill sparked controversy for potentially allowing the Government, embodied in the Cabinet, to make major changes to the law - even to the constitution - without first submitting them to Parliament for scrutiny and vote.

There defense amounted to 'we'll be responsible with that power', but that isn't enough. This is just the latest step in a long term trend. Parliament has been getting weaker for decades and with it has come a, perhaps unintended, consequence: instability.

In the strictest terms, the constitutional and governmental powers of the United Kingdom are vested in Parliament. It is the supreme authority in state. Collectively, the power of the state is embodied by - primarily - the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons.

Theresa May promised a state that was strong and stable centred on her personal rule. So did David Cameron. And neither on them has been able to deliver. In the late twentieth century and the early part of the new millenium, there were brief periods when the winds were just right, or the two party system rigid and exclusive enough, that singular leaders could stick around for a while.

But betting on stability rooted in the personal longevity of a single person would get you long odds and for good reason. Power embodied in a single person or a single party is inherently unstable, because their power base is fundamentally just a fraction of the people of a country.

That the power of state is, in theory, vested in Parliament is above all a reflection of the futility minority rule. Theresa May can never offer stability if power is not rooted in inclusive, democratic assemblies.

As her speech showed, power hangs on a thread. A persistent cough can weaken the power of one person. And if that person must embody the state and all it's people and power, you start down a dark road that leads nowhere good.

When the Brexit Bill returns, MPs - especially Tories - must be brave enough to resist to flagrant concentration of power. If for nothing else, to put an end to a trend that has guaranteed a near permanent condition of instability that affects everyone.

Little Victories: Tackling energy costs would be a small win with big consequences

Photograph: Power Lines from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

We're living in times of big conflicts. Fascism has reared it's ugly head (in various guises), there are big changes under way in international politics and for the first time in three decades, a nuclear war is again talked about as something that might actually happen. It can all get overwhelming.

If you're feeling overwrought, remember that the big problems are rarely overcome with grandstanding solutions. More often, they're broken down into more manageable problems with little victories adding up to a much more profound and lasting change. As Bobby Kennedy put it:

"Each time a man [sic] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance."

That is the task ahead of progressives in Britain: to send out the little ripples that build into a wave. But where to start? One opportunity on the horizon is opening on the cost of living.

Over the summer recess, pressure has been building within the Conservative Party over the May Government's decision to drop promises of tough measures to tackle the energy sector. That pressure is mounting towards a rupture.

On Sunday, 53 Conservative MPs signed a letter to Theresa May that demanded a reinstatement of the energy price pledge - that promised to protect ordinary households from the 'Big Six' energy companies - which was dropped from the Queen's Speech.

This backbench rebellion won't be completely selfless concern. At the last election, Tory MPs caught wind of public unhappiness at the unfair burdens that are being piled onto them. These MPs have to act to save their seats.

But there-in lies an opportunity. 53 rebel MPs is a huge problem for Theresa May, who holds only a slim majority. If the opposition is united, the government will have little choice but to take action or face a possible defeat in the Commons.

In the short term, that might lead to a small material improvement for the most vulnerable households. That in itself would be a welcome and tangible help to people just trying to get by. A small win for a good cause.

Little victories, however, build into much larger ones. Changing the government's direction would also have a much wider and lasting impact. Acting to regulate the energy market strikes a blow against deregulation - the market fundamentalist belief that outcomes are better when oversight and rules are limited.

Acting to regulate the energy market admits market failures. Admits that, left to their own devices, companies in deregulated markets can fall into unfairness and exploitation that produce worse outcomes for the many to the profit of the few.

For those feeling overwhelmed in tumultuous times, this is a grounded cause. A small win for people trying to keep their living costs down, would strike blow against exploitative capitalism. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time.

Queen's Speech: Theresa May has her DUP pact. What comes next for the Progressive Alliance in opposition?

Theresa May's first time as Prime Minister putting forward a Speech from the Throne was not the triumph she had counted when she called the election on 8th June. The document she provided for the Queen to read was threadbare.

It was an affair more rushed and with less frills than usual. Gone too were the main thrusts of her party's manifesto. Much was reduced to consultations and two thirds of the bills were just carry-overs from the last legislative session.

With no majority, even this thin schedule looked in fragile. Today, Theresa May sought to firm up her position by finalising the deal with DUP for support - bought with billions in funding. But that support comes with the price of a potentially toxic relationship.

With the support of the DUP, Theresa May might just survive the confidence vote will be held on the Queen's Speech. While losing the vote would mean an immediate end to her Premiership, winning will probably only delay the inevitable.

There is an opportunity now for the progressive parties. The Tories have dropped much of their manifesto, have no overall control of the Lords, and a DUP deal is likely to disappoint and aggravate moderate and liberal conservatives among Tory MPs. There will be fall out for the Barnett formula and funding for Scotland and Wales, and an impact on rebooting devolved government at Stormont.

There are even a few bills in the Tories legislative programme over which progressives could exert a strong influence, like the bill to ban tenant fees and a new domestic violence bill. These are a chance for progressives to show they can get the job done.

These productive actions will be important to offset the other side of opposition: frustrating the government's efforts to carry on in its austere rightward direction - and there is still plenty that needs to be frustrated.

Despite the promise of an additional £1 billion in funding for Northern Ireland, there Queen's Speech showed little intent of deviating from the austerity agenda. There is a fight still to be had on social care funding and welfare cuts continue to roll on.

There will also be a colossal amount of work to do on Brexit. The Tory programme contains a range of bills brought about by Brexit that will also need deep scrutiny. It may not be possible to avert Brexit, but its impact on the most vulnerable most be mitigated.

Tory rule has been weakened but it hasn't been toppled. The result of the election has given Parliament new power to hold the Government to account. The parties of progress must get opposition right. They must assert themselves and start setting the terms of debate. There is a new future to be won and this is just the beginning.

Theresa May has fatally undermined any Conservative claims to moral authority

Theresa May decisions as a leader, to do deals with the DUP and keep out of the public eye after he Grenfell fire, have severely undermined any Conservative claim to moral authority

When talking about British politics, there is a note of caution to keep in mind about the Westminster system: the rules are more like traditions that can be interpreted to suit the situation and that this happens mostly to protect the status quo.

It's that favouring of the status quo that Theresa May will be clinging to right now. Even though May won the most seats and votes, she staked the house on winning a majority and she failed. That result hurt her hopes of remaining leader, but it shouldn't have fatally undermined the party.

Yet the Tories are teetering. Theresa May's leadership has taken the party from dominance amidst struggling opposition, and it has been the result of poor decisions and poor leadership.

There were the absurd decisions on the campaign like avoiding the public and staying away from debates. But her failures have been most stark in the past ten days since the election.

The decision to seek a coalition for the DUP has antagonised, divided and provoked - even putting the Good Friday Agreement at risk. In fact it has done everything except what the forming a coalition is supposed to do: bring stability. It's also a choice in stark contrast to her own, and her supporters', rhetoric.

Then came the Grenfell fire, symbolising everything wrong with the austerity creed that May has continued. The working class left in unsafe homes by profiteering landlords protected by Tory deregulation. And her response, in this moment that cried out for leadership? Absence.

Theresa May's administration has form when it comes to disappearing. When the Right-wing press launched an attack campaign on the entire principal of judicial independence, the government went quiet. It would be days before a small, quiet statement of support for the judiciary would emerge.

As the working class died or were left homeless, Theresa May was working on a working on a reponse, undoubtedly. But she was invisible. Moving about under the shelter of police protection. Hidden behind closed doors. Hidden from the people suffering through the tragedy.

As the poor response of the Bush Administration to the disaster left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina undermined confidence in the GOP, Theresa May has damaged public confidence in the Conservative & Unionist Party with her very public absence during a time of crisis.

Combine that with the divisive decision to try and go into government with an anti-abortion, anti-LGBT, morally extreme party with historic connections to paramilitaries, and you have a toxic brew.

As hard as it is now for May to lead, she has been left little other choice. The Tories made their election campaign one dimensional. It was all about the leadership qualities of Theresa May. That may well continue to backfire well beyond the present crisis.

May campaigned for a personal show of support. The largest number of votes and seats in Parliament was won, not under the brand of the "Conservative & Unionist Party", but under the brand of "Team May". As difficult as May's position is now, it's hard to see anyone else from the Conservative benches having an easier time. They could not even claim to represent the mandate, however limited it may be, won on 8th June.

If the Conservatives see sense and listen to concern about the DUP deal, and if Theresa May stands down, the most votes and seats may not be enough to keep them in government. Their poor response to the Grenfell fire has done more than hurt public confidence - it has fatally undermined their claim to hold moral authority.

Without it, no ministry can hope to govern for long.

Theresa May's leadership has weakened the Tories profoundly, but her personal mandate and her negotiations with the DUP is all that's keeping them in office. They still need her - and as long as they do, the Westminster preference for the status quo may yet save her and her party.

However, from the morning of 9th June, Labour have told anyone who would listen that they were ready to run a minority government. They may soon have to.

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 - Tory Manifesto: Demanding unity, making no promises

Theresa May has called for unity and social harmony, but she offers little to ordinary people in return.

This manifesto is Theresa May's belated opportunity to stamp her identity of the Conservative Party. In what became her very short campaign for the role of Conservative leader, she chose to emphasise the Unionist element of the fully titled Conservative and Unionist Party.

At the 2017 manifesto launch, "Forward Together" was written on the front of May's podium as she strained to come across as a 'compassionate conservative' and the word "Unionist" was restored to the party's name on the front of the manifesto.

Inside the document, there was an effort to rewrite what it means to be conservative. It called for "commitment to country and community", "belief in national institutions", and obligations to one another stronger than individual rights as community and nation demand.

That definition is unionist to its core. In her first major speech as leader, she listed her hero as the Unionist Joseph Chamberlain. As Mayor of Birmingham, he led the modernisation of the city through public-private initiatives and the establishment of public utilities, in decisive acts of intervention.

There are some among the Tories who are perturbed by what they see as a similar interventionist streak. May's first manifesto and her launch speech seem to have been shaped to confirm that impression. But there is a real contrast between the tone and the content.

The headlines that the Conservatives drip fed to the media over night, before the launch, were all focused on what the party would do to address the dire state of social care - which critics say has seen a funding cut of over £4 billion on their watch.

Theresa May pitched a long term plan. The first step appears to be to launch a raid on the middle class: from their assets on one hand - those with holdings over £100,000 will pay more - to their winter fuel allowance, which will be means-tested to raise £1 billion.

The belt-tightening Tory plan extends down the income brackets. Pensions will again see cuts. With £8 billion already shaved across the Parliament (2015-2020) with the flat-rate pension, ending the triple-lock will be further hurt for the low paid on just the state pension.

While an argument might justifiably be made that the triple-lock has proven very expensive - pensioner incomes have risen 10% above inflation - not enough is being done to lower the cost of living, particularly in old age, to ease such a 'rebalancing'.

It is perhaps this that has motivated an intervention in the energy sector with an unspecified "safeguard tariff cap" on prices and a commission and independent review into how to ensure energy costs stay low, with a promise to ensure fair markets.

But let's be clear: social care changes brought in by raising the means-tested level to £100,000 does nothing to change the conditions for the poorest. These measures raise maybe £2 billion per year, at best, in additional funding to aid an ailing system.

That means the poorest will continue to rely on strained and underfunded care services, while the homeowning middle class will be paying far more for privatised care - and still won't be able to pass on their family homes to their children.

In fact, when you take into account hinted Tory plans to give workers the right to unpaid carers leave, it paints a picture of Conservatives intending to wean people off of state care.

Perhaps learning from the Cameron years, hard targets seem to have been replaced by lots of vague promises: to simplify tax laws, to stop tax evasion, to protect gig economy workers and to put more money in the NHS (despite having yet to meet their previous targets) - though the promises to control immigration continue to be more clearly specified.

But what does not seem to have changed is their attitude to the fiscal role of the government.

Current spending stands this 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, it stands at about £59 billion.

With further commitments to eliminate the deficit, across both Current and Capital spending, a National Productivity Investment Fund of £23 billion - even if it turns out to be rebranded rather than new money - heralds more austerity cuts to come, either from other infrastructure spending or from departmental budgets.

And that matters. Britain has already been hard hit by austerity. Yet despite in her manifesto disavowing the liberal conservative legacy of Cameron and Osborne and claiming that the state has a role, May is continuing their squeeze on public services.

Note here, that what can be interpreted about how the Tories will manage the economy has no help from the manifesto, which has no costings whatsoever. Just vague promises and vague numbers with no explanation of where money will be found, or taken.

The reality is that easing the social care strain by having the middle class pay more and by restraining the pensions of the least well off does nothing to increase the stake of ordinary people in their country. May is preaching a new Union, but it's still the same old unredeemed and hard to believe Tory slogan: "We're all in this together".

This is not an inclusive manifesto. It is not progressive. It is social harmony Unionism, putting the vague notion of a 'country' before the needs of the actual people. Theresa May demands unity, but doesn't offer ordinary people a real stake in the country.

Progressives and reformers will also be particularly unhappy to see Theresa May doubling-down on retaining power, with specific commitments to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, preserve First Past the Post and to require voter ID - all measures empowering the government of the day to stay there.

The path ahead, under the Conservatives, will continue to see the burdens fall on the poorest. Nothing in this document changes that. It is imperative that there be a progressive alliance to resist and oppose, because we need a strong opposition.