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.

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

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.

Poor babies.
Has bad David stolen your precious word?

It was always meaningless!

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.

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.

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.