Whilst out campaigning this weekend someone claimed that the Liberal Democrats were now the most left-wing party in Britain. Being of perhaps the more “liberal” than “social democrat” persuasion I did my usual polite “well, I wouldn’t say that, but then you’d expect me not to” thing and moved on.
I then read The Economist’s latest opinion poll on political matters either side of the Atlantic pond which places the Lib Dems as the leftist party of the UK, where “left” “implies a big-state, secular, socially liberal, internationalist and green outlook”.
Has the party drifted leftwards, or has the definition of “left” drifted towards the party? The latter it would seem. The formulation the Economist has used for “left” certainly sounds like the Lib Dems I know and love (except for big-state) rather than the old-style left of yesteryear which we have all come to loathe.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Liz W // Apr 1, 2008 at 9:40 am
That definition isn’t perfect, because in theory the traditional left needs a big state only as a means to an equitable distribution of wealth and control of the means of production, not as an end in itself; but if “big state” is understood in that way, I don’t think the definition has changed (and for that reason, I think it matters that we don’t ignore that part of the definition). I think what has happened is that Labour has moved decisively to the right. To me, though, the most interesting thing about that graphic is how far to the left both ends of the UK spectrum are in comparison to their US counterparts.
2 wit and wisdom // Apr 1, 2008 at 9:52 am
This is rather a lot of tosh from the generally wonderful Economist. The paper normally does a good analysis but it also tends to try to bring things to a simple conclusion, generally based on the principle that the market is always right…
How can we be ‘left wing’ on ‘national interest’, or ‘religion’.
The bottom line is that a left-right scale is so limited it is meaningless.
3 Gavin Whenman // Apr 1, 2008 at 10:01 am
Wit and Wisdom: I think we are “left wing” on those two issues in terms of being more internationalist and secular (generally) than the other two parties.
Liz W: The Economist makes the same observation: that Britain in general is more left-wing (even the right wing!) than America.
4 Jonathan Fryer // Apr 1, 2008 at 11:24 am
The terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ are increasingly meaningless in today’s British politics. The real distinction is between ‘liberal’ and ‘illiberal’, and there is no doubt that the LibDems are the most liberal. However, for people who insist oin wearing the straitjacket of left-right definitions, New Labour has drifted so far to the right that this has made the LibDems the most left mainstream party — which is a situation with which I feel perfectly comfortable.
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