Tory classical liberalism

Progressive Vision, the classically liberal, non-partisan pressure-group-cum-think-tank (link) has managed to score another hit. First they set up Liberal Vision (link), a classically liberal 'ginger blog' within the Liberal Democrats. I have linked to their weblog on my sidebar.

Now — well, at the Tory party conference in October — they have set up Progressive Conservatives (link), headed by Syed Kamall, Conservative MEP for London, and governed by an executive board composed of influential, well-known people within Conservative politics. In an article for ConservativeHome today (link), Kamall argues that the true Conservative progressives have always been on the side of social liberalism as well as economic freedom. His case is that progressivism is about giving people responsibility for their own lives, and that increasing state control is inherently anti-progressive.

Kamall is looking for Conservative party members with a classically liberal outlook to join the new grouping, and of course I wish him every success. It looks like they could use some people to get things moving: the PC website is not the most fast-moving of places, and the weblog has precisely one entry. So if my reader is a prime target of Kamall's endeavours, I commend the new grouping to him.