It is time for Britain’s real progressives to unite

Last Christmas, the New Statesman leader observed that 2008 had been a year of "profound cultural and political shift in Britain". The financial crash of that autumn had dealt what appeared to be a near-fatal blow to the 30-year hegemony of neoliberal economics. Little did we know that we were on the cusp of a political cataclysm every bit as convulsive as the great contraction of the global economy. The scandal of MPs' expenses - with its sordid catalogue of phantom mortgages and moats, duck houses and bell towers, pornographic films and tampons - destroyed the last vestiges of public trust in the political class (voters' confidence in their elected representatives having already been sapped significantly by the debacle of Iraq).

But abused allowances weren't responsible, by themselves, for a thoroughgoing crisis of parliamentary legitimacy that translated, at the polls in June, into an electoral catastrophe for the governing party (to which the enfeebled Prime Minister responded with a botched cabinet reshuffle that led to renewed and damaging speculation about his leadership). Rather, they drew attention to Westminster institutions that are dysfunctional from top to bottom. Because of grossly inflated majorities delivered by an unfair voting system, the House of Commons has become little more than a rubber stamp for an overweening executive.

We should not forget, however, that 12 years of Labour rule have delivered significant constitutional reforms: devolution to Scotland and Wales, an elected mayor of London, the Freedom of Information Act and ratification by Britain of the European Convention on Human Rights. Yet as we approach what seems to be the end of this legislatively hyperactive New Labour government, the House of Lords remains unelected, a promised referendum on electoral reform has once again been postponed and, despite months of sustained public opprobrium, MPs have yet to submit to transparent and coherent rules governing their activities in the House.

The Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, told this magazine recently that the 2010 general election would be a "watershed", as were those of 1945, 1979 and 1997. We agree, because it will take place against the backdrop of this unprecedented confluence of economic downturn, financial instability and parliamentary crisis.

Is a rebranded Conservative Party under the energetic leadership of David Cameron best placed to take advantage of these unusual conditions? This was the year in which the Tories came out as "progressives". Although this magazine has given a hearing to the intellectual outriders of so-called progressive conservatism, unlike other sections of liberal opinion, we remain to be convinced that there is more to this than mere rhetoric. In truth, Mr Cameron is less a progressive than an old-style shire Tory, with a genuine compassion for the poor. Some of those closest to him are unreconstructed free-market Tory nationalists, in the old Thatcherite model.

Mr Cameron may see himself as the "heir to Blair", but he cannot be all things to all men. And the suspicion lingers that, when under pressure, his instinct is to revert to small-state, neo-Thatcherite type. Witness his party's commitment to cutting inheritance tax for the country's richest estates, while expecting the rest of us to endure the privations of a new "age of austerity". Recent polls showing the Tory lead narrowing to single figures suggest that voters are yet to be convinced that the Conservatives are capable of resolving this contradiction.

The 2010 election could be a watershed for ano-ther reason entirely: it holds out the tantalising prospect of a realignment of progressive politics in the wake of a potential hung parliament. We would welcome a democratic-republican, left-liberal coalition, committed to wholesale constitutional and economic reform.

Even if, from this vantage point, such an outcome seems unlikely, it is nonetheless highly desirable. There is much good thinking being done at present outside the Labour Party - by the Compass group, by Richard Reeves and James Purnell at Demos, by Phillip Blond at ResPublica and by some Liberal Democrats, as well as in the left-liberal blogosphere, notably by Will Straw of Left Foot Forward and Sunder Katwala of Next Left. So, as we enter an election year, we shall continue to encourage progressive politicians of all parties, and none, to unite around a common programme of protecting public services, democratising parliament, bolstering civil liberties and reining in financial excess.