Tory triangulation

Further evidence of Conservative Party modernisation came this week in a speech from George Osborne.

In an interesting interpretation of the meaning of “progressive”, the Shadow Channcellor argued that only under the Tories would public services be safe since the Labour centralisation and over spending approach meant cuts in education were inevitable. Under a Tory government, education would be open to independent contractors who would drive down prices and deliver more efficiently.

You don’t have to believe this would work. Productivity gains in any organisation are the Holy Grail and trimming the fat in the public sector almost always fails since the people hired to try and sort things out have no idea what they are doing. (Good doctors know who the other good doctors are better than administrators).

Anyway, the point here as far as A level Politics goes is that the Conservative Party under Cameron are repeating the trick carried out 15 years ago by Blair: cherry picking the best bits of your rival party’s policies. In fact things have come full circle since one of the key architects of New Labour, Lord Mandelson, accused Osborne of “cross dressing”. He would know!