"It has thrown its weight behind politicians on the right, like Margaret Thatcher, and on the left, like Barack Obama. It is often drawn to centrist politicians

"It has thrown its weight behind politicians on the right, like Margaret Thatcher, and on the left, like Barack Obama. It is often drawn to centrist politicians and parties who appear to combine the best of both sides, such as Tony Blair, whose combination of social and economic liberalism persuaded it to endorse him at the 2001 and the 2005 elections (though it criticised his government’s infringements of civil liberties)." Interesting examples, which if anything tend to reinforce the idea that left and right are more difficult to go 'beyond', even for a venerable magazine, than they'd like to think. So you vote for Margaret Thatcher - you get the big bang in the city, privatisations, the breaking of the power of the unions. You also get section 28[1], rabble-rousing about migrants, aggressive policing and strikingly illiberal drugs policies. Blair and Obama (just about) managed to gain some ground for gay rights, and I suppose this state-by-state legalisation of marijuana is happening on Obama's watch, but one could hardly call them libertarians when it comes to the secret state. What The Economist is telling us, for practical purposes, is that deregulation and so on is more important to its editorial line than personal liberties of various kinds. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28