Letwin only adds to the vacuity.
You have to hand it to the Conservatives, they really have improved their spin game. Provoked by articles in the Grauniad arguing that the Conservatives have very little in the actual way of policies and that this needs a lot more scrutiny, Oliver Letwin responds with an article which doesn't outline a signal actual specific policy, although it is flowery, and unlike the prose of the Blairites, almost approaching pleasurable to read. It somewhat proves the point: if a Labour MP, especially one in the cabinet wrote something similar, it would be monstered and rightly so. Letwin's piece has attracted just 25 replies, although comments on CiF have been closed since 2pm for an upgrade, and while the vast majority are critical of how Letwin only outlines broad themes, none are as vituperative as you might expect. The most offensive is someone who rather amusingly just leaves the word "twat", which Letwin might see the funny side of himself.
Perhaps you can't blame Letwin for doing so. Of the few outlined policies that the Tories have announced, very few could be defined as "progressive", itself a word that can increasingly be used to mean the opposite of what it originally did. Letwin mentions welfare and families as where the Tories will be instituting change, but putting unemployed youngsters in "boot camps" and bribing middle class families with £20 a week is neither progressive nor likely to achieve what the Conservatives say they want to.
At the moment, we seem to be sleepwalking a Conservative government with little real knowledge of what it intends to do. Letwin has done whatsoever to alter that.
Perhaps you can't blame Letwin for doing so. Of the few outlined policies that the Tories have announced, very few could be defined as "progressive", itself a word that can increasingly be used to mean the opposite of what it originally did. Letwin mentions welfare and families as where the Tories will be instituting change, but putting unemployed youngsters in "boot camps" and bribing middle class families with £20 a week is neither progressive nor likely to achieve what the Conservatives say they want to.
At the moment, we seem to be sleepwalking a Conservative government with little real knowledge of what it intends to do. Letwin has done whatsoever to alter that.
Labels: "progressive", Conservatives, death of Labour, Oliver Letwin, politics, we're all doomed
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