We must explain how our "progress" will be different to theirs

Yesterday speech by David Cameron seems to be getting a lot of attention simply because he used the word progressive. Now to be honest there is a reason why I didn't mention it until now and it's basically because I didn't think it was that much of a big deal. The reason I didn't see it as a big deal because what Cameron said is quite self-evident and, frankly, is something that I myself have believed for a number of years now.

There is, philosophically, no contradiction between conservatism and progression if one understand what the conservatism actually is. I can understand that, especially someone who is not a conservative and finds themself on more on the Left might have a problem with that. After all, in purely simplistic terms the former is about conserving thing whilst the latter is about changing things. They appear in that sense to be polar opposites.

However, the first thing to do in this respect is understand that conservatism is not solely about conserving things and rejecting change. The principles of conservatism do not reject change, they simply take a cautious approach to the change that they implement. As such conservatism rejects change for changes sake, but does not reject change totally.

If though, conservatives can be progressive what is it that makes them different from those that traditionally get labeled progressive? I'd argue that it all comes down to a question of pace. The rapidity of change we have seen in the UK in the last ten years, in, for example the NHS, shows the exact problem of change for changes sake.

The NHS has been subjected to multiple re-organisations in the past ten years, all of which have been driven by an honourable desire to make things better, but, have also been subject to impatience from politicians when results don't manifest themselves within a few months. In comparison the conservative approach is first to say, stop. Then baseline the impact of your last change by letting it bed into the system.

Philosophically, and theoretically there is nothing wrong with the notion that conservatives can be for progress. But if we are to go down that route of recapturing such language for ourselves, we must make sure that we explain how we approach change differently to the old progressives. It is not enough to simply start calling ourselves progressives without explaining how we're not like the others.