Are the Tories the new progressives?

This morning's leader in the Guardian is getting a fair amount of attention in the blogosphere this morning.The paper has spent the week looking at the "New Tory party"

It asks the question

three years after David Cameron became its leader, has shown, Conservatives are once again making a pitch for the progressive vote. Should people for whom the idea of a Tory government has always been a horror start to listen?

So has it indeed become the new progressive party?

A survey of candidates in key seats - whose attitudes will do more to shape any Tory future than current MPs - found a generation whose social conservatism has taken on new forms. Not (for the main part) hostile to old taboos such as homosexuality, gender or race, they believe themselves to be progressives, but have a vision of progress that many liberals will fear. It might involve a reduction in the availability of legal abortion; it certainly carries with it a stress on marriage (though Labour itself recognised marriage in the tax system with last autumn's changes to inheritance tax). Beyond that, though, these candidates - and most of the shadow cabinet - do want to address progressive issues such as social mobility and poverty. Their interest is genuine and their dislike of Labour's record is strong: the challenge that should be put to them is whether their alternative, state-sceptical, ideas could work.

And this is where the editorial says that Labour can challenge the progressiveness.That unlike the Labour party the Tories are not prepared to pay for it