This analysis from the Political Compass website on where the UK's leading political parties might be on their electoral map is interesting:
I suspect that few will be surprised by this finding. That the Greens and nationalists stand so far away from the leading English parties is unsurprising. It is equally unsurprising that all those English parties are both authoritarian and right-wing.
Only the DUP breaks the mould on this issue.
What else would anyone expect?
The analysis is on their website, here.
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The decriminalisation of sex work is included in the Green Manifesto, along with the decriminalising the purchase of drugs for personal use.
I’m not sure that assymetric bans have a record of ever working, but it does sound like the Greens are indeed socially liberal.
How can it be sensible to decriminalise the purchase of illegal drugs without doing something/anything to create a legal (regulated) supply chain?
I call that nonsense.
I agree Andy. Assymetric bans are the result of wishful thinking that the world can be made better by banning sex purchasers while legalising the sale of sex. How is someone going to legally get a customer to relax? Or decriminalising crossing the channel in a dinghy while criminalising the organisers. Or decriminalising buying drugs, while still criminalising shop lifting to get the money to legally buy them from a supplier that isn’t legally allowed to.
The Greens are romantics out of touch with reality and have never had to think about supply and demand, but at least they’re talking about some of our worst laws.
The telling insight here seems to me that the conclusions fit reasonably well with what I have intuitively come to believe. The SNP, Plaid etc., are slightly left, but centrist (some Scots would put them slightly further right); Labour and Conservative are right wing, authoritarian and increasingly extreme; no surprise there, for anyone.
The irony is that Labour and Conservative have tried (and are failing) to sell the snake-oil that they represent the centre ground; and the SNP are extreme. Labour and Conservative have both abandoned the centre.; but their centre is on wheels, and they can move it, at will.
The downside of this analysis is that it is based on an approach that is badly out-of-date. It is measuring the wrong things: ‘Left’, ‘Right’ and ‘Party’ are part of the problem, not the solution. This politics is living in a past that no longer exists, and hasn’t existed for some time. Indeed that is why the Parties can all pretend they are in the centre; it is all irrelevant.
I tend to agree
Richard,
Thanks for this. I remember looking at this site back in 2017.
It’s very telling how similar the 2017 version of this looked back then the positioning of Labour under Corbyn is a lot closer to the Greens.
The SNP are a bit more Authoritan too.
Food for thought here I think.
https://www.politicalcompass.org/charts/uk2017
Thanks Tom …..
A very useful comparison there, that really is ‘change’, both to the right and more authoritarianism is not for the better imo.
Am enjoying “The Starmer Project” after its recommendation here, and it is very scary indeed.
It reminds me a little of Isaac Deutscher’s Stalin bio, in the man’s personal political journey.
I would place the SNP well to the right of Plaid economically.
Even the IFS comments on the Labour manifesto launch on WatO were less than lukewarm, and there is much to be tepid about..
The Tories have almost gone full Austrian now, almost worshipping at Mises’ shrine, and that shows too.
I’m not surprised that the SNP are slightly more authoritarian than in 2017: all the devolved nations are bound into the UK economy as dictated by the ruling party in Westminster. All tax revenues of the devolved nations, except Council Tax, go in the first instance to HMRC/the Treasury and then trickle down to the devolved governments via the Barnett formula, which is driven by UK Government spending in England. The outcome is vividly seen in the Scottish Government’s Budget, where the Tories’ policy of austerity reduces the Block Grant (particularly crippling in times of high inflation) and forces ScotGov to reduce its mitigation of UKGov tax and benefits policies. Similar impacts will be affecting the budgets of the Welsh Senned and the Stormont in N Ireland. The devolved nations haven’t moved to the right: they’ve been sucked to the right by the policies and funding structure of Westminster.
Currently there are no Scotland-specific data collected/available for c95% of its economy, so, under the existing scheme the real nature of Scotland’s economy will only become apparent once Scotland is independent and all tax etc revenues flow into the Scottish Exchequer.
Agreed
A few people have commented to me, are the Conservatives really that far to the right?
Which begs the question, what specific policies determine where a party appears left/right?
It was the Financial Times that stated that “The Tories are now the most economically right wing party in the developed world”. https://www.ft.com/content/d5f1d564-8c08-4711-b11d-9c6c7759f2b8
Labour have certainly not been socially liberal for many years, and maybe neither economically either. At local level in the 70s and 80s, misogyny and homophobia were considerable, with a sprinkling of racism, in my experience, despite the liberal changes wrought by Wilson. Radical ideas in the 70s and 80s (e.g. Lucas Aerospace) were kicked into the long grass. It’s only got worse, a lot worse.
My vain hope is that the Greens get their policies a bit more watertight – perhaps as you suggest – and maybe get some more oxygen than RacistReform. What worries me is that if there is the slightest threat from that quarter, LINO (if in overall majority) will throttle finances to Green councils, a surefire mechanism to kill off progress, as they are certainly ruthless enough to do.
I suspect the Labour party was never truly socially liberal. My ex- leafleted at election time (in the fifties) for her father who was a staunch Trade Unionist and political lefty and he referred to the fact that the Labour Party always had its quota of ‘hangers and floggers’. Has that changed? I don’t know, but the working class was always (and inso far as it still exists) still is remarkably socially conservative. Nobody has caps to doff these days but they still do the equivalent.
A couple of blogs ago, Mr Warren did a corruscating analysis of left – right etc & noted that such labels are totally outmoded.
It is possible that “authoritarian vs libitarian” is likewise outmoded (libitarians in the USA often favour polluting industries provided the pollution does not occur in their backyard). Thus perhaps we need new labels that reflect new realities.
The above also is a continuation of the “Newspeak” meme which was discussed in a previous blog. Words (labels) are losing their meaning. Safer territory is the use of sentences. For example,
“clean rivers and seas should be a human right in the UK and the direct responsibility of any & all goverments”.
“access to an effective and efficienct health system should be a human right in the Uk, and not dependent on an individual’s financial circumstances and largely provided by government”
I apologise for taking a different angle – this is in an effort to stimulate debate. Taking shortcuts allows for distortions/misapplications. Woke? anybody?
@Mr_ Warren: Do you have a link to your post?
I see that Richard made a thread a few years back: “The differences between right wing, centre ground and non-market believing economists”
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2021/09/27/the-differences-between-right-wing-centre-ground-and-non-market-believing-economists/
Potential dimensions I may suggest?
‘Common-wealth’ – the degree of focus/importance from the collective to the individual in reality (not in manifesto)
‘Caretaking’ – in both the ecological sense of the ecosphere and the human sense of looking after those in trouble
‘National-international’
‘Assimilative – resistant’ – in cultural terms
and in terms of internal affairs:
‘Democratic – centralist’
‘Ideological – purchased.’
‘
Mr Tresman, it was June 10th, but if Richard will allow I have copy/pasted it below (it isn’t long).
But first, as an introductory aside, Mr Parr makes the point that authoritarian/libertarian leads to surprising outcomes. It is a very well made point. We assume consistency of ideology in politics, to the point of obsession among politicians; but only the dogmatic are consistent, because they are unchallenged by the complexity of reality, and the fact that human beings are not rational. For example, sometimes, we suddenly find that we agree about something important with someone we have always believed is wrong about everything; and that they feel as strongly about it as you do; it can be disconcerting. Politicians do not allow this, because it is impossible in a Party system not to reduce everything to a binary stand-off (if you believe this, you have to believe that, and that, and that – and all of that is unacceptable); but reality it isn’t reducible to ideology and that makes it too complicated for the media, who will leapt to conclusions, because they can. We need a complete rethink. We need to find common ground, so we can make things actually work. This binary, ideological thinking makes our politics impossible to do anything constructive at all. Inertia is the only option, because nobody can afford to find common ground in a Party system.
Here is my 10th June comment:
I think we need to stop trying to frame the chaos of modern politics in the simple-minded ‘left-right’ binary division; based on our narrow historical perspective, based on a two hundred and fifty year old conceptual socio-political separation established in the French Revolution, and given a refinement by the industrialisation era, between property/capital and worker/labour; sharpened and expanded by class distinctions, and class politics as a solution. Capital has survived, but everything else has gone. Now the central tension in the West is with globalisation, and the disruption it visits on nations states; combined with a massive world movement of populations accelerated by globalisation, and the globalised digital revolution. This is a different world from the antiquated rubbish on which our politics focuses, and the nonentities who pretend they can make it work.
Capital remains and adapts as it always does, and the only other ever present is not some left/right ideology, but what really holds us back: the world is full of crooks and gangsters, more often in our midst, pretending they are something else, and succeeding.
We are not going anywhere with this language of the past. I read this thread and see only that we are going round in diminishing circles. Forget the ideology. Look beyond it. I do not say this because I understand all this, and have the answer; but I can see when we are slowly losing the plot, and in britain we have already lost the plot.
Of course…..
Thanks John, much appreciated.
I agree. It is at best lazy and at worst cynical to reduce social discussion to abstract taglines. I thought this recent article in Dispatch raised interesting points regarding the political obfuscations created by the rise of group identity speak:
https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/gfile/identity-is-a-uniform/
Might a “Minimal Government to Optimal Government” axis be a possible alternative to the “”Right to Left Axis”?
A good starter….
Optimal is the wrong word, I think. Maximalist is more appropriate and accurate.
And it seems to me that the other axis then becomes ‘Authoritarian – Democratic’ because the authoritarian ‘turn’ that we see taking place in the UK, US and elsewhere is by definition anti-democratic, or perhaps more accurately, antagonistic to social democracy.
So, Starmer’s Labour party is clearly authoritarian – minimalist, while the Tory party is a little higher up and further across in the same authoritarian – minimalist quadrant.
In similar vein, Russia and China would both be at the top of the authortarian axis (though leaving a little room for North Korea to squeeze in above them), while they would be positioned differently on the maximalist – minimalist axis.
And I’d assume that most of the readers of Richard’s blog would define themselves as ‘maximalist democrats’ – to a greater or lesser degree of one or the other.
Unfortunately, I don’t see a more accurate/realist labeling of the polities of the world breaking us loose from the deeply entrenched use of ‘left’ and ‘right’ in any narrative or discourse about contemporary government and politics. A maximalist-democrat would still be labelled a ‘lefty’ – as indeed is the case in the US.
That said, every attempt should be made to call out authoritarian political parties and politicians for what they are (as Richard has been doing for some while, though I might disagree with his use of ‘fascist’ on occasion). Perhaps that aspect of the narrative can be changed, though I’ve a strong suspicion that we’re heading into a world where that approach to government and politics is no longer seen as a negative by a large number of politicians.
Thanks, Ivan
Just some thoughts on the wee historical binary left-right perspective….
The authoritarian / libertarian vertical axis seems to echo the 2nd International dispute between Bakunin and Marx as to the proposed evolution of Marxist socialism, with a highly controlled central intelligentsia as the elite running a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ state in Marxism.
This contrasted with the highly decentralised voluntarist and federalist approach of Bakunin aka anarchism and libertarian socialist model.
This is not the free market libertarianism of the so-called US based anarcho-capitalists, who are merely anti-statist Mises fanboys, which I’d classify as nihilistic.
In that sense it is entirely redundant just as JSW suggests, though highly centralising and authoritarian groups with strict pyramidal power structures are still very common, if not ubiquitous.
Nicola Sturgeon ran one such regime, (which ended well) and so are most populist leaders controlling. I would place SKS as being very high up the authoritarian leadership ladder.
The opposite term is probably decentralising, as power is dispersed and diffused amongst a range of smaller political groups or institutions who then co-ordinate – and that is pretty close to left syndicalism and the co-operative movement.
Scandi social democracy evolved from the Norwegian model last century and is still substantially based on decentralised power and local administration with considerable autonomy.
Comparatively, the original power structure of the soviets, as works councils post October 1917, also involved high levels of local autonomy but which linked together with a common revolutionary purpose.
Of course, Leninism finally wiped out that socialistic libertarianism after the Krondstadt rebellion, and Stalinism then progressively enforced his pyramidal dictatorial model.
The left – right horizontal axis reflects how far a pure capitalist model is accepted.
I assume that full state socialism is on the far left and Austrian, laissez faire, free marketism on the far right, with various interventionist levels in between.
Again, the historic failures of full state socialism probably make that model off the scale these days, so it ought to more reflect the different types and purposes of interventionism.
I’d distinguish between regulation that aims to prioritise full employment in Keynesian macroeconomic mode, and degrowth / environmental regulation that aims to prevent pollution, habitat destruction and supports biodiversity (and social freedoms) and ultimately planetary sustainability.
The power of capital is also differently expressed between producer and rentier models, one seeking to create value, the other to extract it. Both monopoly and oligopoly seem inevitable trends in both, aiming for real world ‘visible hand’ market control so scorned by Adam Smith.
Again this tends to confirm JSW’s arguments that the old left-right single axis model is hopelessly out of date, though I think it can still provide some kind of limited useful anchor point when looking at egalitarianism and inequality issues.