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There never was a "progressive majority". Polly Toynbee is queen of an empty realm
Polly Toynbee, queen of "progressive" pieties gets a pasting from Harry Cole. The "progressive majority" never existed.
Last night I had the pleasure of a Newsnight debut, supposedly to talk about the death, or even the existence, of the so called “progressive majority”. Joining me in a scrap was Polly Toynbee of the Guardian, though sadly Jeremy Paxman wouldn’t let the conversation really move on from why only a smattering of places in the UK voted yes to the Alternative Vote (AV) model in last week’s referendum.
One thing is for certain though, the "Progressive Majority" did not show up last Thursday to sweep away first-past-the-post and usher in a new era of politics. Thirteen million people, three million more than voted for Cameron, united to reject AV.
What was telling was the areas that did say Yes: Oxford, Cambridge, Islington, Camden. Bastions of the liberal “intelligentsia”. These are the sort of places that you hear people use the word “progressive” with a straight face, but what does it really mean?
People like Polly Toynbee use the word “progressive” to describe their peers who genuinely think that they are the good guys.
Yet it is a fig leaf that thinly disguises the prejudices of a wannabee ruling elite and their desire to preach, nanny and raise taxes. They wander through the political desert trying to convince the Labour Party, or once upon a time the Liberal Democrats, to house them.
Those who live in these bastions of liberalism, with their £1.5 million houses, second homes in Tuscany, friends with super-injunctions, double media incomes and kids at private school, think everyone must be as “clever” and “right-on” about everything as they presume to think they are. But if that is the case, why did this “Progressive Majority” not show up anywhere else in the country last Thursday?
The obvious response is that these people are totally out of touch. If anything, there is a “common sense majority” in this country favouring lower tax, more freedom from the state, less interference in their private lives and fewer state busybodies: the progressives' idea of hell.
The Guardian represents a tiny, largely urban, self-appointed “elite” of voters, all talking to themselves on Twitter and at north London dinner parties, all deluding themselves that the country agrees with them and that if it wasn't for the Daily Mail or Murdoch or the evil Tor-eees we would all live in a social democratic paradise.
AV didn’t prove that the Progressive Majority was dead. It proved finally, once and for all, that it never existed in the first place. Tony Blair knew it, which is why he created his own breed of Conservatism to take over the country. And Nick Clegg knew it too, which is why he laughed the idea of a rainbow coalition out of the shop in May 2010.
Harry Cole is a writer and journalist and the news editor for the Guido Fawkes blog. He also writes for Total Politics Magazine.
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This article says more about the author than it does about Oxford, Cambridge, Islington and Camden.
Duncan Stott, Oxford
I live in Cambridge and there are loads of them - progressives - on my road. They are generally ok and contribute to the nice selection of shops in the area. They just want the world to be a nicer place, but they don't realize that they are possessed of a rather intolerant single-minded self-righteousness.
Duncan Stott - I see you come from Oxford - article strike a raw nerve did it?
"This article says more about the author than it does about Oxford, Cambridge, Islington and Camden."
Yeah, it says the author understands what makes ordinary people tick far more than our thrice damned "progressive" liberal elite do.
Marvellous effort that.
Calling themselves "progressives" is the same kind of intellectual fascism that brought us "climate change denier". In other words, smear anyone who doesn't agree with you by implying that the alternative view can only be luddite, regressive or even lunatic in nature.
Follow the Bear.
@Duncan Scott. Yep. That'd be the case. Clearly one of the Not Progressive majority, is old Harry.
Duncan Stott, I really think that the author has a very good point about the people living in the yes-voting areas: they are ignorant of the mind-set of the vast majority of British people but believe that they speak for them. They are deluded.
Duncan Stott's comment says more about him than it does about this article.
Stuncan Dott, Planet Earth
@Duncan Stott, Oxford.
No it doesn't. It merely demonstrates beyond statistical peradventure that the usual suspects still come from the usual places and still say the usual things. Which the country then contentedly ignores - much to their horror and baffled bemusement.
Jules Wright, Real World.
The reality is that "Progressives" are just self serving. They wanted AV as they knew it would give them a greater chance of power. It's no different to Communism or Socialism in the sense that it's based on a eutopic ethos, that is irrelevant and frankly aims to replace a ruling elite with an even smaller ruling elite.
In short it means Polly get's paid even more by the BBC.
Every headline on every article in The Guardian on any given day essentially says "you, dear reader, are more intelligent and more morally upstanding than everyone else in the country". If they read that enough times in print while sipping a double-espresso in a 'charming' boutique cafe in Islington, it becomes 'true'. That is how The Left grooms its followers.
Re Toynbee's office at the BBC, isn't it Michael Whites old office ? I bet it's a lovely shade of Pink now, better than the scarlet it was.
The point about progressives is that they tell us things that just aren't so. I snapped out of this corrosive mindset years ago when I reached my 18th birthday - bye bye adolescence and its ideals, hello adulthood and discovering the world as it really is. Seems this rite of passage passed by Toynbee and her bedfellows.
The "Progressives" just want to be the Piggies at the Farm. Animal Farm should be required reading at all schools in the UK
She gave herself away at the end, claiming there is “definitely an anti-conservative majority", one and the same fallacious conceit as the "progressive majority" who failed to materialise last Thursday.
Progressive is an umbrella term for people who don't vote tory, who Labour deceitfully claim to their side. As they did after Labour's nut-punch General Election result, they claim ownership of every non-tory vote, a perverse view of democracy that assumes everyone votes AGAINST what they don't want rather than FOR what they do.
The huge failure of AV ends the conceit put forward by Grauniadistas that there is a national desire to register a protest vote, but still grudgingly accepting permanent Labour governments.
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The scourge of DOUBLE MEDIA INCOMES! Revealed by Harry Cole, news editor of the Guido Fawkes blog, who also writes for Total Politics magazine...
I saw the item on Newsnight. I think I know why the BBC give Polly Toynbee so much time on TV. She makes everybody else look and sound attractive.
Progressive? I was very progressive when I topped Trotsky. Even more progressive in getting rid of the intelligentsia, who might oppose my reforms and changes to society. Omelettes require broken eggs, you can't be progressive without bloodshed. Polly is not progressive, her friends are not progressive, they are wayward intelligentsia who know nothing and will become the cannon fodder of the revolution.
Viva la causa.
GBA: "The scourge of DOUBLE MEDIA INCOMES! Revealed by Harry Cole, news editor of the Guido Fawkes blog, who also writes for Total Politics magazine."
I think you'll find that by "double media incomes" the author was referring to those left-wing luvvie media couples of the Marr/Ashley variety, rather than journalists who contribute to multiple outlets. Easy mistake to make though. *cough*
Left whingers use the word progressive to cover the fact they have no progressive ideas whatso ever - they want us back to the old trade union dominated failing industry of "blue" collar workers who they believe will always vote for them. Their arrogance is unbelievable, the "workers" of this country are neither blue nor white nowadays, just employyes of one skill or another. And the public will vote for the party with the best chance of improving our economy and that ain't labour.
"Progressives" are as divorced from ordinary people as any political set in the country. They come across as political puritans who loathe the rest of us for not living up to their values. Then they act surprised when no one wants to vote for them.
Pollykins is right when she says there's an anti-Conservative majority, but she doesn't go on from that to realise that there's a bigger anti-Labour majority, a very big anti-LibDem majority and an absolutely huge anti-Green majority
Ed Milliband summed the whole situation up when he said that FPTP served Labour well in 1997-2010, but not now! I rest my case
A good piece but it doesn't explain why after lots of 'progressive' style social polices being introduced by the Blair government Labour were returned twice again. Why didn't the common sense majority see through Blair and Brown, their empty promises and downright lies? Part of it was the lack of a coordinated opposition the benign financial climate until 2008, and the rotten boroughs in our electoral system but surely they weren't the only reasons. I've spent the last 13 years wandering if we had a common sense majority and if so where was it?
I was in favour of PR but my view was changed by the 'arguments' of the 'Yes' campaign. Their argument was: "If we lovies, media whores and comedians are in favour, how dare you, the little people, doubt us? Just vote Yes."
"It was the Yes Campaign What done it!" They worked tirelessly for the "No" campaign. We needed: "These are the arguments in favour of "Yes." Here's a clear analysis from an expert." Instead we were hectored by comedians and lovies. The result shows to the "Yes" campaign the public are thick. The truth is the "Yes" campaign was rubbish. And thick. Never have the words: "Epic Fail" had more meaning.
Polly Toynbee - I'm Australian - is she some kind of Bwitish Dame Edna Everidge?
PS we have the latte lapping, sandal wearing, BMW driving progessive'' wankers here too. Inner city in breeds who want to ruin life as ordinary people know it.
The Regressive Alliance resides in a politically correct intellectual gulag formulated in the 1870s and is somewhat out of date in the post modern era. It is an elitist Fabianesque world view fashioned before social networking revolutionised information patterns and consigned pompous Liberal elitists like elderly Pollykins to the dustbin of history.
When I hear the loony left and the BBC (same thing), discuss "liberal" and "progressive" issues, I am always reminded of the early soviet era when the Bolshevik Party (trans. Minority Party) took over Russia and certainly proved to be neither liberal nor progressive. The left need to avidly clutch and disseminate these mantra words as they display no sound reasoning to an experienced and cynical public. The right have similar words, but more in the idiom of national identity, though ironically it is the BNP who have claimed the flag.
If 68% voted against then the actual percentage of people voting for the change is going to be a lot smaller that 32%. Of those persons wanting this change, nearly all would have voted while of those against, a much lesser proportion would have bothered to vote.
The LibDems would do well to recognise this and to stop bothering the UK voting population with ideas which would result in less stable governments.
Give yourself a pat on the back, you just gave that strawman a damn good thrashing. I agree with the broad thrust of your arguments, but the way you go about it doesn't reflect too well on your own intellectual honesty. I forsee dark clouds in your future Mr Harry Cole, you could be the rights answer to Jody Mcintyre. I hope Paul Staines is giving you plenty of tutoring, he seems to have the knack for walking between the raindrops.
Rich toff Toynbee would not know the real people of Britain if she tripped over them on her way to the airport to her Tuscan villa.
I wonder - the amount of time rich toff Polly spends in the BBC on air these days - does she have her own suite of offices there?