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"Progressive" Britain

Often heard the word 'progressive' bandied about with regards to society like we are heading towards some sort of utopia.

I have just head David Millband (on Question Time) saying we should be more progressive on gay rights, healthcare and education. I can understand what he means with regards to gay rights but not so sure about the other too - obviously we all want the best heathlcare and education and we have different ways we would like to achieve that - so is progressive just a cheap buzzword with no actual clear definition or end target?

Wikipedia basically defines it as forward thinking and advocating change - well that doesn't exactly clear things up because things are always changing (and sometimes going back to where they once were)

In your mind if we had reached the peak of being progressive what would society be like?

Reply 1

skydive

i tell you what is not progressive in UK, it is the trains and London underground, they need major over haul

Reply 2

Made in the USA

Progressive probably means higher taxes, bigger government, more spending. It just sounds better than hearing politicians say they are going to steal all your money.

Reply 3

Tefhel

'Progressive' means taxing you to hell. He's just thrown gay rights in there so you think he means we'll be 'improving' education and healthcare, when he really means he'll double taxes on the middle class - so they can't afford anything (they're neither too rich to be easily able pay for it, nor too poor that they get free money for it).

I imagine a "progressive society" is one where the amount of tax you pay increases perfectly proportional to your income. Eg. the bottom 1% of people pay 1% tax, the top 1% of people pay 99% tax. People seem to really like that idea although I can't for the life of me fathom why.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 4

837491

this is the like the conflict between the coalition and Labour over what metric should be publically used to measure the success/failure of the government.

Should the fight be who is more 'progressive', who is most 'equal', who is 'fairest' or who is more 'responsible'?

'progressive' may be the opposite of conservative, but does not necessarily conflict with what the Conservatives Party propose.

After all, the Conservative manifesto was quite radical and 'progressive' - think NHS reform, free schools, big society....