The glass on the irony meter exploded

[nanila]

I tweeted about this last week, but want to put it down on this more permanent record.

In a discussion about American politics last week*, my Austrian colleague stated that in Austria, both of the main political parties in the UK are seen as quite right-wing.

We all had little sit-and-think about that one. >.<

* My colleagues like to wind me up by asking me what I think of D----- T----'s latest gaffe. I think they quite enjoy the spluttering and hand-waving and noises of despair that I am incapable of repressing on hearing his name.

Comments

[cmcmck]

While I grant you that they are- Tory and Tory lite these days (okay so I'm an old leftie) that's rich coming from an Austrian!

[yvi]

While there may have been a time where this was true in Germany (when the CDU was conservative, but not right), at least the Democrats would not be considered right-wing here. From what I've read on Austrian politics, I am not convinced it's that much better there, actually. Even if considered right-wing, it's not like the Austrian people aren't electing their own right-wing parties, the FPÖ being the third largest party...

[yvi]

I just looked at FPÖ posters from the last election, and yeah, I think I have to scrub my brain now. Quite generally, I think at least mainland Europeans have been losing the right to be smug about US politics these past two years or so. Pretty much all countries here are having their people elect more right-wing parties than before.

[davidgillon]

I quite like the way the Political Compass lays things out on two axes.

Here's the UK http://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2015

And here's the US Candidates http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016

I'm somewhere down in the bottom left.

[yvi]

Oh, that's an interesting site - the German election 2013 at least seems accurate to me http://www.politicalcompass.org/germany2013 and that does concur with me thinking Clinton=CDU

[davidgillon]

UK rings true as well. All three of the main British parties are fairly authoritarian and economically right of centre (though Labour is now slipping back towards centre).

[pbristow]

Thanks for that. Turns out I'm even more in tune with the Greens than I realised when I voted for them! =;o}

There's always a caveat with such surveys of course... How well are the questions balanced, to be properly representative of the issues that decide such things? Have any of the political big names or party policy makers ever taken the same survey, or (more likely) are their answers being inferred by interpretation of what they say/write in public; and if so, how accurately is that being done...?

[fred_mouse]

Oh, that is a fascinating site, thank you.

Sadly, it has confirmed my suspicions that the current Australian political parties and I are out of whack, as even the Greens aren't far enough left/down for my leanings.

[silveradept]

Yes, Mr. T---- is a person that produces that kind of reaction every time his mouth says something. It is more than a little annoying every time I am reminded that the finest is one again likely to be between the conservative and the one who wants to burn it all down.

[angrboda]

The UK spectrum, I think, is pretty much the same as the Danish spectrum these days, only ours are divided out over more parties. (The whole to-do about the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition and whether or not it would last was quite strange to us, because our governments are almost always coalitions. Right now we haven't got one and it's really strange. Of course the whole election was a bit strange last time with the party in government now only being there because of other parties supporting their leader as next prime minister while they themselves had a dreadful election. Unlikely to last a full term. Hopefully it won't.) The US spectrum is still entirely to the right of our right. At least the part of it that we see. We don't see all the internal stuff.

As for Donald Chump, people wouldn't actually be so stupid as to actually elect him, would they? Please say they wouldn't. I asked Husband if we could move to the moon if they did, but Husband said that wasn't far enough away.