4 ms·

>> "I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties" I thought the liberal democrats (at least before the coalition) were the most left lean

>> "I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties" I thought the liberal democrats (at least before the coalition) were the most left leaning of the major parties.

petercooper 12y ago
Long-term, no, but due to New Labour (1997-2010) being slightly right of centre, the Lib Dems were "left" in relation to that, yes, but not in relation to Labour's traditional position. I am not particularly savvy when it comes to Scottish politics, but I was under the impression that Scottish Labour was considered somewhat more left than Labour proper even during the New Labour years.
buro9 12y ago
Labour are the most left leaning, but still kinda centrist. Liberal Democrats are relatively centrist for the major parties but still quite right: This sums it up best... the UK is mostly a right leaning authoritarian country, we vote on the relative differences between parties rather than the overall thing. http://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2015 http://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2015
- thomasfoster96 12y ago
  Is it just me or does politicalcompass.org seem to skew everything towards right wing authoritarianism?
  - buro9 12y ago
    I think it's just the world we live in. The left and more liberal options exist but none of them are mainstream and we mentally re-draw the extents of the political compass to cover the politics we experience (the major parties).
    - thomasfoster96 12y ago
      Having had a look through political compass's past predictions (primarily Australian, since I'm Australian) their analysis is very odd. I mean, there is no way that you can seriously put three quarters of the parties on the top right 16th of the chart.
    - petercooper 12y ago
      That should be how the political compass is drawn since it is based on human experience, no? I think that chart is crazy though. The Conservatives are far from a far right party. Christ, if you dropped the Conservatives in America, they'd be considered a right bunch of commies - even the Democrats would be off the scale to the right by that chart.
      - masklinn 12y ago
        > That should be how the political compass is drawn since it is based on human experience, no? AFAIK, the political compass attempts to assess an absolute scale across world politics, not local choices.
        thomasfoster96 12y ago
        Still a bit odd the concentration of western political parties in the right-wing authoritarian section of the graph - unless there's a whole lot of countries with extreme left-wing governments which are very pro-choice, which I highly doubt.
        masklinn 12y ago
        > Still a bit odd the concentration of western political parties in the right-wing authoritarian section of the graph Dunno, if you consider that much of the anglosphere is patterning itself more and more after US politics which lives solely in the top-right corner of the top-right quadrant it makes sense that they would coalesce there. And "labour" parties have definitely been shifting their stances towards US dem inspiration.
  - masklinn 12y ago
    Seem about right to me. The NZ[0] or German[1] compasses cover much more of the spectrum, especially towards left-libertarianism. It's not politicalcompass's fault that US politics live entirely in the right-authoritarian corner and English politics have significantly shifted towards it with New Labour's realignment on US democrats. [0] http://www.politicalcompass.org/nz2014 http://www.politicalcompass.org/nz2014 [1] http://www.politicalcompass.org/germany2013 http://www.politicalcompass.org/germany2013
    - thomasfoster96 12y ago
      Yes those NZ and German charts look a bit more balanced - but being from Australia, their 2013 Aussie election chart is just a bit silly to be honest - two of the parties listed had no chance of even getting any seats, and despite most parties being fairly centrist in their economic policy they all seem to be bunched up in the top right corner. My only guess is that the analysis was done using a small sample of international media.
masklinn 12y ago
They were the centrist party, labour was the binary left (centre-left). The Dem part of LibDems had split from labour in the 80s because labour was getting too left-wing. With New Labour moving to centre-right, LDs moved to right-right (explaining the coalition being "basically tory"). The left-leaning parties remaining are the SNP (center-left) and the Greens (left) (Sinn Féin can be ignored as they refuse to sit in Westminster)
collyw 12y ago
http://politicalcompass.org/uk2015 http://politicalcompass.org/uk2015 They are all right wing.

>> "I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties" I thought the liberal democrats (at least before the coalition) were the most left leaning of the major parties.

petercooper 12y ago

Long-term, no, but due to New Labour (1997-2010) being slightly right of centre, the Lib Dems were "left" in relation to that, yes, but not in relation to Labour's traditional position. I am not particularly savvy when it comes to Scottish politics, but I was under the impression that Scottish Labour was considered somewhat more left than Labour proper even during the New Labour years.

buro9 12y ago

Labour are the most left leaning, but still kinda centrist. Liberal Democrats are relatively centrist for the major parties but still quite right: This sums it up best... the UK is mostly a right leaning authoritarian country, we vote on the relative differences between parties rather than the overall thing. http://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2015 http://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2015

thomasfoster96 12y ago
Is it just me or does politicalcompass.org seem to skew everything towards right wing authoritarianism?
- buro9 12y ago
  I think it's just the world we live in. The left and more liberal options exist but none of them are mainstream and we mentally re-draw the extents of the political compass to cover the politics we experience (the major parties).
  - thomasfoster96 12y ago
    Having had a look through political compass's past predictions (primarily Australian, since I'm Australian) their analysis is very odd. I mean, there is no way that you can seriously put three quarters of the parties on the top right 16th of the chart.
  - petercooper 12y ago
    That should be how the political compass is drawn since it is based on human experience, no? I think that chart is crazy though. The Conservatives are far from a far right party. Christ, if you dropped the Conservatives in America, they'd be considered a right bunch of commies - even the Democrats would be off the scale to the right by that chart.
    - masklinn 12y ago
      > That should be how the political compass is drawn since it is based on human experience, no? AFAIK, the political compass attempts to assess an absolute scale across world politics, not local choices.
      - thomasfoster96 12y ago
        Still a bit odd the concentration of western political parties in the right-wing authoritarian section of the graph - unless there's a whole lot of countries with extreme left-wing governments which are very pro-choice, which I highly doubt.
        masklinn 12y ago
        > Still a bit odd the concentration of western political parties in the right-wing authoritarian section of the graph Dunno, if you consider that much of the anglosphere is patterning itself more and more after US politics which lives solely in the top-right corner of the top-right quadrant it makes sense that they would coalesce there. And "labour" parties have definitely been shifting their stances towards US dem inspiration.
- masklinn 12y ago
  Seem about right to me. The NZ[0] or German[1] compasses cover much more of the spectrum, especially towards left-libertarianism. It's not politicalcompass's fault that US politics live entirely in the right-authoritarian corner and English politics have significantly shifted towards it with New Labour's realignment on US democrats. [0] http://www.politicalcompass.org/nz2014 http://www.politicalcompass.org/nz2014 [1] http://www.politicalcompass.org/germany2013 http://www.politicalcompass.org/germany2013
  - thomasfoster96 12y ago
    Yes those NZ and German charts look a bit more balanced - but being from Australia, their 2013 Aussie election chart is just a bit silly to be honest - two of the parties listed had no chance of even getting any seats, and despite most parties being fairly centrist in their economic policy they all seem to be bunched up in the top right corner. My only guess is that the analysis was done using a small sample of international media.

masklinn 12y ago

They were the centrist party, labour was the binary left (centre-left). The Dem part of LibDems had split from labour in the 80s because labour was getting too left-wing. With New Labour moving to centre-right, LDs moved to right-right (explaining the coalition being "basically tory"). The left-leaning parties remaining are the SNP (center-left) and the Greens (left) (Sinn Féin can be ignored as they refuse to sit in Westminster)

collyw 12y ago

http://politicalcompass.org/uk2015 http://politicalcompass.org/uk2015 They are all right wing.