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‘National Conservatism’ and ‘Progressive Britain’ — is there really such a difference?
BEN CHACKO argues that behind the deliberate dog-whistle provocations of the loony right and the vacuous ‘aspirational’ rhetoric of Blairism is a united front to lower our expectations — and our living standards
Two sides of the same coin? Both Labour and the Tories are engaged in lowering our expectations of life and work

TWO May conferences painted a bleak outlook for Britain’s working-class movement — unless it can wrest control of the political agenda back from politicians.

Both were conservative. That is, one was run by a group called Progressive Britain, but its keynote speech by Keir Starmer stressed Labour as the party of true conservatives.

The other was called the National Conservatism conference, though it wasn’t national in the sense of being home-grown like Therese Coffey’s turnips, since it was a project of the Edmund Burke Foundation, a US think tank.

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