Right and left

The idea of right-versus-left is being replaced by new political clashes between centralisers and localists; hawks and doves; idealists and managers; and traditional values versus social liberalism.

In Britain the Tories have traditionally been seen as right-wing and the Labour Party as left-wing.

The idea of 'right and left' originates from pre-revolutionary France where, in the legislative assembly, defenders of the aristocracy sat on the right of the chamber and representatives of the 'commoners' sat on the left.

Over the years right has fought the left over many issues but common to the greatest clashes has been the right's tendency to champion economic freedom over economic equality. For the traditional right fairness comes in ensuring equality under the law and equal opportunity - for the traditional left fairness is about outcomes as well as opportunities.

Do right and left still work?

With the collapse of communism most political parties now agree that free enterprise economies create the most wealth and jobs. The political left and right are no longer so divided on economic questions. It may only have been twenty years ago that Labour leader Michael Foot was promising mass nationalisation of industry and finance but his views are as politically dead as the dinosaurs. Today Gordon Brown and Bill Clinton triangulate as fiscal conservatives whilst George W Bush is the big government conservative - pouring borrowed money into homeland security and defence.

Today there are new divisions in politics and they don't easily fit in the right-versus-spectrum:

• There is the division between people who want to centralise power in Whitehall and those who want to devolve power to local communities and frontline public servants...
• There are the hawks in the war on terror - like George W Bush and 'left-wing' Tony Blair - and 'right-wing' doves like Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Peter Hitchens...
• There are the progressive conservatives who want to defeat today's social problems and the status quo lefties who want to manage those problems...
• There are the proud defenders of national sovereignty (Tony Benn and William Hague) and the multilateralists (Ken Clarke and Peter Mandelson)...
• There are the left-wingers who think that values and family structure matter (Frank Field and David Alton) and then there are growing number of permissively liberal Tories who want laissez-faire social policy...

Centralism versus localism. Hawks versus doves. Idealism versus managerialism. National sovereignty versus multilateralism. Traditional values versus social liberalism. These the some of the important new divides in politics.

EXTERNAL LINK TO WIKIPEDIA’S OVERVIEW OF THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM.
RELATED TORYDIARY LINK: Anyone out there describe themselves as right-wing?

Comments

[a-tracy]

Thanks for this Tim.

Can you add more examples or get other bloggers to give more definitions because I'm trying to work out where I sit. You see, Boris Johnson a while ago had a 'test', if that's the right word, with questions to see where you sat on a graph of four quarters, Tony Blair was in the upper right quadrant towards the lower x axis. If Mr Johnson still has this 'test' you could add it to this website with just the four leadership candidates placed on (and perhaps the other prominent supporters of each candidate)

[henry curteis]

I think that a belief is private enterprise should still just about still get a mention under right wing. Although at one time that earned a tag of left wing, when the growth of business was seen as a threat to the established position of the aristocracy.

The enemy of private enterprise today is not so much the left in terms of punitive taxation, over-powerful trades unions - but now the enemy of business is excessive regulation. The growth rate of businesses is a key component of productivity, and due to regulation the growth rate of business once so good in the 1990's is now stalling under the weight of regulation - as predicted.

Gordon Brown/Blair claim to want to see productivity improving, and yet he and Labour have overseen the creation of a vast new regulating industry - which is destroying the enterprising spirit of British business.

Most of the regulation originates in the EU - and so letters of complaint to MP's about plain stupid regulation or regulatory practice, are usually replied to with 'there is little I can do about this as we are obliged by our Treaty obligations.' Up until 1992 a letter to an MP would often sort out troubles at local level. Not any more.

The first job for MP's is to repatriate powers and get control of our lives again. Or we will see an increasing collapse of our economy in the future.

Is the attempt to repatriate powers Right wing? Not really. It is just as popular a policy with the likes of Tony Benn, Arthur Scargill as it is with UKIP, IDS and many Conservative MP's. It is wing-neutral. Common sense in fact, but not to the media who are in the pay of the corruption system.

The other big problem with the EU is its corruption. Opposing this is surely not left wing - but the media who claim that anti-EU folk are right wing, are by definition calling pro-corruption candidates/politicians such as Ken Clarke, Tony Blair as left wing. As all the corruption is rewarding the wealthy and the privileged of the EU and its cronies, this surely is the biggest volte face of the left/right concept since its inception in the 1790's.

[a-tracy]

Great, thanks for the external link - it was the Political Compass I was thinking about - I wonder where DC, LF, DD and KC sit on this Compass I would like to know how close to where I appear to be that they are?

[Adan Dixon]

Yes, http://www.politicalcompass.org/
this website is a very good test to do to know how you actually swing.

With centre left - Lib dems and Greens are about localism and progressive policy which is admirable. Whilst labour on the other hand is about centralization and was doing deregulation of banks, so it was hardly left wing or libertarian. I think people of all political stripes realize that localism is essential as with a population of 70 million nearly, not everyone is going to agree with the central government and thus local solutions to local problems is on order.