I think what this primarily shows is that “progressive” is a useless word in political discourse. What does it mean? The present government, based on their approach to the structure of the health service, seems to think is means always changing, which I suppose is true, though progress suggests you are getting toward something, though what this thing is is never defined. If it is progress toward some nebulous goodness, then who could be against it. Though what you believe to be good will differ (which is why Cameron can claim it, at the same time as members of the Government can).

If you re-parse Gove’s statement, he is saying that teaching methods that make progress are a bad thing, which is clearly nonsense – education should be making progress toward a student being educated. What he wanted to say was modern methods let you down, but thought that would make him sound like a stuck in the past pillock.

It IS an interesting development that ‘progressive’ can no longer be trusted to mean “progressive” – the barstardisation of our language has undermined our political discourse to the extent that all sides attack their natural allies in an attempt to stave off opponents who steal their clothes.

Frankly, neither left and right can be trusted, nor should we make any assumptions about who can be.

It all reminds me why Animal Farm is a more insightful and relevant book than 1984.

I just thought I’d add that I am fairly sure that ‘progressive’ comes from the States, where they use it to mean liberal, because the right there have managed to make liberal a dirty word.

I think what this primarily shows is that “progressive” is a useless word in political discourse. What does it mean?

It means “I am in favour of changing things in the way that I favour”.

So Cameron is being perfectly honest when he uses the word.

Yup, its become dirty when abused in such a way..

Only I am allowed to use that word.
And it must apply only to those things of which I approve.

Poor babies.
Has bad David stolen your precious word?

It was always meaningless!

I agree with those above. Progressive is a meaningless word. Surely what is required are solutions to problems. When choosing solutions such factors as ease of implementation, value for money and effectiveness needed to be assessed. When introducing new methods , especially in education they need to be assessed without political bias. In engineering and science if there is a failure it is relatively obvious this event has occured and and measures can be started to determine the cause. When assessing the ills of society , the terms progressive and reactionary just become a term for preventing honest unbiased thought. The problem is that so many people involved in these sort of discussions have little or no experience of solving practical problems that discourse bears very little relation to reality. One just has to ask the question” Are educational standards improving in the Uk ?” to enter a world where the terms progressive and reactionary can mean anything and therefore become meaningless.

There’s a failry shallow understanding of both political history and the word ‘progressive’ on this thread.

The Tories were espousing progressive causes a generation before the Labour party was formed (pro-Union legislation, public health & education projects) and Cameron’s brand of Conservatism isn’t a shiny new & shallow invention – it’s one nation paternalism, something that has deeper roots in the Tory party than Thatcherism ever had. You can take issue with the detail of it and even question Cameron’s sincerity but you can’t claim that it’s rootless or meaningless in the conservative tradition.

As for whether or not ‘progressive’ means anything – of course it does. It’s surely facile in the extreme to say it loses its meaning simply because your political enemies adopt it (with historical justification)? It’s about general progress in society and values and policies that bring that about.

The Tories have sometimes been on the wrong side of that debate, sometimes the right side. As have Labour and most political movements. To suggest that this devalues the word is just lazy.

All politicians are de facto “progressive” because they want to change the status quo, otherwise they wouldn’t be in politics. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Amin, the BNP, all could describe themselves as progressives because they wish(ed) to implement change in the socio political order.

Quite why the left think it is “their” label, or why they think it has any (let alone a positive) meaning is beyond me.

Matt,

I love to engage, but I have to completely disagree with you on that one. There is a serious issue about whether labels accurately reflect reality or whether they are used to pull the wool over our eyes.

In describing some of the most vilified political figures of recent history you are merely trying to create proof by association, where in fact you have done no such thing.

‘Change’ is a nebulous word which obscures a multitude of sins: it can be either progressive, regressive, mixed, variable or undefined and can therefore be tailored to appeal to different sets of constituents for different reasons. Even within each type there may be many variations since (for example) nobody would argue that Brown and Cameron place similar and equal emphasis on the particular aspects of society they each intend to influence.

Quite simply, not all change is progress and not all that is painted as progress actually is, while sometimes even the mooted benefits of an advance are devalued by the consequence of creating weakness elsewhere.

All of which forces us to look more closely at the details of any proposals so that we can make a balanced and better-informed decision when the time comes.

Well the word seems to have taken hold in the US during the late 1800s, during the Progessive Era.

But yes, I think people, especially university students as I am, use the word progressive in place of liberal because it doesn’t cause the same knee-jerk reaction as the latter word. But I’m sure in time “progressive” could become a loaded term and have the same effect, necessitating a new word in place of it.