The looney left is never really, really mad until it has formed a boycott of something. True to form any company supporting the coalition cuts its going to be made to really suffer. As the plan gets a nod from the CBI, comrades from across the land have signed up to boycott the evil corporations that provide millions of jobs. Viva!

However just like their objection to Osborne’s sums, looking at just a handful of the companies backing them such as Next, ASDA, Microsoft, Mothercare, Carphone Warehouse, TalkTalk, Boots, Marks & Spencer, Ocado et al, the maths really isn’t in their favour:

The High Street names that cater for almost the entire population must be shaking in their boots…

During the detoxification phase of the Cameron Project to get the Conservative Party re-elected they re-branded themselves as “progressive”, which is the opposite of conservative. It disarmed critics at the cost of ideological coherence.

All parties now say they are committed to welfare reform, even Red Ed says he agrees with IDS that it should always pay more to work rather than stay at home on welfare. Yet whenever a practical reform to this end is advanced a chorus goes up from the left-wing think tanks, Labour politicians, the Guardian and the BBC that it is not “progressive”. Guido does not seriously dispute the methodology or accuracy of the IFS analysis of the Spending Review, no doubt the bottom decile will be marginally worse off in proportion to other population deciles as a result of the Spending Review. Guido questions how we can move forward without, in aggregate, the lowest decile losing out.

The lowest income decile in this country is comprised largely of welfare transfer recipients, these people receive money largely from the working poor and the squeezed middle, quite simply that decile’s welfare payments come from the taxes of the rest of us. The only way that reforms can be made to fit the “progressive” template that would please the progressive choir would be to pay the unemployed more money taken from the working poor and the squeezed middle. That might be “progressive” but it won’t lead to progress.

It is in no one’s interest to increase the poverty trap by increasing the payments to those who aren’t working at the expense of those who are working. It isn’t progressive, it is divisive.

One example of a reform which struck Guido as common sense yet raised the hackles of “progressive” lefties; Osborne announced in the Spending Review that single claimants aged under 35 will be limited to claiming housing benefit for the equivalent of a room in a shared home, rather than for a one-bedroom flat.  Almost everyone working in the private sector who is single is unable to afford their own home in London, sharing is the norm. Is it fair that young single welfare-claimants are paid enough for a flat of their own which their working peers can’t afford? “Progressives” are campaigning against this fair reform.

Osborne’s “progressive” phase was a tactical necessity during the detoxification phase, it is a hindrance to real progress now. Attempting to solve the problems we face using policies that pass an arbitrary “progressive” bar will fail. It is time the Liberal-Conservative government abandoned the pretence to “progressivism” to move the country forward.

See also : Don’t Fight on a Battlefield of Your Enemy’s Choosing

Last week saw 80,951 absolute unique visitors make 235,620 visits to view 376,096 pages. As the BBC moves to supplant the Labour Party as the official opposition with rolling reports of brutal cuts deliberately aimed at crushing the poor (yes you, Paul Mason, on Newsnight), stories about BBC bias took poll position this week.

A small victory for the blog was the diktat this week from BBC top brass to staff to restrain themselves from openly relishing Maggie Thatcher’s demise on Twitter.

The top stories last week in order of popularity were:

• BBC Boss Tells Left-Wing News Staff“Stop Tweeting”
  
• Paranoid About Left-Wing BBC Bias?
• That Aircraft Carrier Decision Explained
• Wayne Miliband
• An Open Letter to Paul Dacre
• Will the Spending Review Spark a Resignation?
• Guy News: Dessy and the Deficit Denying Dinosaurs

You’re either in front of Guido, or you are behind…

Lord Ashcroft asks in Parliament:

“To Ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they expect citizens to organise their tax affairs in order to maximise tax payable.”

There was a quiet mention last Friday of Dave’s Christmas plans. Ephraim Hardcastle reported “friends of the Prime Minister say he plans to take his family to Thailand, where he will enjoy the hospitality of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.” Eton and Oxford educated Vejjajiva is a contemporary of both Cameron and Boris, although the Mail played a straight bat others were quick to notice Dave’s old school chum’s atrocious human right record and willingness to employ emergency powers at the drop of a hat. The little matter of a coup d’etat against a democratically elected government and the shooting by snipers of dozens of peace protesters in May. Strangely there was nothing in print though…

Guido understands that at a number of Sunday papers were ready to question how appropriate it is for Cameron to be kissing under the mistletoe and sharing turkey with such a controversal figure, even if they did know each from school, but the Downing Street machine had other ideas. Andy Coulson and Henry Macrory deployed the security line to put off at least one Mirror hack from filing their piece. Apparently, despite the news of the visit already appearing in print, the PM and his family would be at risk if the Sundays picked it up. Yes, of course, that’s why they didn’t want the story running. An heir to Blair indeed…