European voting

[undyingking]

You probably know by now that I'm a sucker for this sort of toy. It's a quiz that matches your opinions with those of the parties standing in the European elections, but the fun apect is that it will tell you not just about your own country but also about parties in other countries. So I can see for example that my own closest opinion matches are the German Greens, the French Socialists and Plaid Cymru. Not much use to me here, unfortunately.

It's also interesting to see that the pro- / anti-EU spectrum bears, on a Europe-wide scale, very little relationship to the left- / right-wing spread. There are socialist parties, conservative parties and green parties, ranging from fiercely pro-EU to vehemently anti-. Social-democratic parties are generally pro-EU, as are liberal parties of left and right, and self-defining anti-EU parties are generally right-wing, but that's about it.

And, either amusingly or depressingly depending on your point of view, it analyses the Labour policy platform as currently being well to the right of the Tories. There you go.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

It puts me precisely on the line between the Greens and LibDems, a short way above the Pro-EU line. Seems about right.

I'm pretty much exactly on top of the Irish Green Party. Maybe I should emigrate?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Better check their policy on immigration first.

[ubiquitous-cat.livejournal.com]

It puts me pretty much where I would expect to be and actually matches how my voting has changed over the years, from always voting Labour to now voting for the Lib Dems.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Is that because Labout and / or the Lib Dems have moved, because you have, or some unholy combination thereof?

[ubiquitous-cat.livejournal.com]

Labour basically have moved to the right in a lot of authoritarian ways. I still think of them as my party but I can't justify voting for the party that has trampled all over civil liberties, is intending to introduce ID cards and move us towards an intrusive and surveillance filled life.

Let alone the Iraq war.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Exactly. That pretty much sums up my feelings about Labour and why I'm more likely to vote Lib Dem these days (although without any great enthusiasm I would add).

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I feel the same, but have stayed with Labour on the basis that anything else would be effectively supporting the Tories into government -- who although I agree more with some of their positions (eg ID cards) I still see as net worse. Pity we have such a rubbish electoral system.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Fascinating.
I am bang on top of the Communist Party of Luxembourg (who seem to be pretty soft at the edges for a Communist party), and mid-way between the Irish and Cypriot Green parties.

In terms of British parties, I am in the same quartile (leftist, pro-European) as the Lib-Dems, but closest in terms of absolute proximity to the Tories (and the denizens of Hell will be scrabbling for their thermal underwear before I vote Tory), followed closely by the greens.

Meh. Where does that leave me? Bloody unrepresented as far as I can see (and which is what I had worked out before). Right now, I expect I will vote Lib Dem... possibly Green if there is a green candidate in my area. Not because I exactly agree with them, but because they are not the current incarnation of the Labour party (which by rights should be my natural political home, but clearly isn't), and because I'd choke to death on my own bile before I ever voted Tory.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Proximity on that graph doesn't mean much, of course, because the two axes are not on the same scale. For most people I'd imagine the left/right axis carries a lot more weight than the Euro axis and so before measuring you should massively squash the graph (which would leave you much closer to the LibDems than the Tories).

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Indeed, fair point.

I'd also own up to being a bit of an anomally in political terms: in straight politics, I would characterise myself as a lot further towards the left than I usually end up in these sorts of graphs, but the fact that religion does affect some of my views (in ways that I consider to be apolitical, but which are seen as socially conservative), usually drags my result back towards the right.

That said, I thought that this one was pretty well constructed, in so far as I can tell. Impossible to judge fully without seeing and testing the algorithms they are using, but it seems well thought-out.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

(in ways that I consider to be apolitical, but which are seen as socially conservative)

Mm, I sometimes get that too. An innocent-sounding "Do you believe X?" seems to often be read as "Do you want to forcibly inflict your belief of X on everyone else?".

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

"it analyses the Labour policy platform as currently being well to the right of the Tories"

Indeed. New Labour: Tough on Civil Liberties; Tough on the Causes of Civil Liberties!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I think, though, that the authoritarian / libertarian axis is better expressed as being orthogonal to the left- / right-wing axis. As seen on Political Compass and so on.

(But htat would make this EU profile one 3D, which might be hard to render clearly!)

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more, and thanks for the link, that's a really interesting site (My results for that test put me within hand-shaking distance of Nelson Mandela, and frankly, I can think of worse company to keep)!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

This newish page is particularly interesting in the current context, I think.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

True, but it really, really would have been worth it.

The late and still much-missed Chris Lightfoot did his own survey - grief, was it six years ago? - in which he asked for opinions on a load of maters, correlated them against each other and deduced two axes that might be more useful than the traditional ones in most 2-D models.

It was a fascinating study and probably worthy of repeating every few (3+?) years, possibly with a wider audience still than the first iteration got.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, I remember that now you say. I'm surprised someone hasn't picked it up.

[tylorva.livejournal.com]

I seem well away from any of the UK parties atm, floating around in the centre as usual. As far as Europe goes, I'm the most pro-EU person I know, but few (if any?) parties are taking a particularly pro-EU stance atm. There seem plenty of anti-EU parties, but none for us pro-EU folks!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, it's the love that dare not speak its name right now. I guess the Lib Dems are the nearest to being pro-EU.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

I've just had a Lib Dem leaflet through the door flogging the "Me and my buddies in the EU Parliament have got you cheaper mobile phone roaming and train bookings and cleaned up the Thames" line, which is a bloody good effort, but I'd be surprised if it got results.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'd be surprised if any statement or policy actually relating to the doings of Europe had any bearing on this coming election.

[tylorva.livejournal.com]

Yeah, according to that site, Lib Dems was the one with the shortest gaping distance to my actual position. ;)

[chilledchimp.livejournal.com]

Green, as expected. But it's a fun way of reminding yourself of the issues and a darn sight more informative than the party political broadcasts so far. I enjoyed the very literal Christian party ad today though, with the elephant in the room.

[tylorva.livejournal.com]

As I lack a TV, I miss all the political broadcasts. dunno if they have appeared on Youtube yet.