Just a bit of fun this. At the Birmingham University Labour Students freshers stall we had a political compass for new and old members alike to locate themselves. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve drifted all over the shop over the past half-decade, so positioning was rather difficult. I’ve just been on the political compass website to retake the test. My Left-Right positioning is hardly surprising (though more left that I’d have imagined), but I was uncertain on the exact definitions of the Libertarian-Authoritarian axis and therefore my position here.
September 2011
For comparative purposes, I’ve also found some older compass plots from the last time I took the test in 2009:
From memory in the past I’ve tended clustered around the 0,0 point, moving in and out of most/all of the quadrants. Clearly there’s been a strong left-liberal trend in the past two years, probably down to a combination of factors. Opposition, looming and extant unemployment, the first Tory government of my political memory, the good people of the New Zealand Labour Party, greater life experience, etc.
Ultimately the compass has some flaws. Even two axes cannot display all political viewpoints. A single point on the plot can only represent a midpoint of ones personal political views, which may diverge significantly issue by issue. It assumes that all one’s views are consistent and logical, without contradiction.
According to the political compass site, the only international figures in my quadrant are Nelson Mandela and His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Ghandi is there as an historical figure. Their historical comparison of UK political parties (as of 2010) is worth a read – apparently I should be thinking of defecting to the Greens.
