[Mufasaa]

(Original post by prog2djent)
That is what I'm suggesting, that's the point, left-right is only supposed to do with economics, no need to go further on what they are. You can't be right wing socially or left wing socially, for example, I think Drugs should be decriminalised at the top end and legalised at the bottom, and I think gay marriage, along with polygamy and incest should be legal if consenting, I think we should bring all troops home, imperialism has destroyed much potential progress of the world etc etc but I am pro-free market, very pro free market, I am right wing.

The left-right thing is stupid and doesn't cover enough, you sound the sort of persons that would know the 4 Axis measurement, most right wing people I know, and most right-wing people on this forum are party of the libertarian right. But under your definitions (and the propogandising media), we are somehow centrist because our economic views are right wing, yet are social views are left? Eh? No, out social views are libertarian and we are economically liberal.

You can get lefties who want to have stricter boarders, anti-muslims/black/non-white laws passed etc, but you are still left wing because you might favour protectionism over free trade, you might perfer military interventionism over staying out of the way, you might prefer lots of state control over the market. What I am decribing is the BNP, shock horror, a center-left party who happen to be extremely authoritarian and border line fascist (which is why they are centre left, since the fascism is pulling them to the extremely authoritarian right)



Pedantic, I know

Very pedantic

Left-Right is used as a scale from liberalism to authoritarianism sometimes, and it's far easier to spell right wing than authoritarianism.

[Rakas21]

Inherently flawed though, you would have to call the Libertarian party right-left in that case.

Technically you should be using full terms always..

Capitalist-Liberal
Left-Authoritarian

[Mufasaa]

(Original post by greenway)
would i be correct in thinking by the 4 axis you mean left, right, authoritarian, liberatarian? (sorry im new to politics lol) :P

'Libertarian Left' may also be referred to as 'correct'

[Barden]

(Original post by greenway)
With some of the population losing faith in the Tory party and feeling cheated and sold out by the lib-dems, and with growing levels of euroscepticism following all the trouble with the euro economy will people be more inclined to switch to the UKIP vote? I do not support UKIP I am merely asking this question from observations I have made

A disgruntled Lib-Den supporter won't swing to UKIP. The Conservatives maybe, but more likely the Greens or Labour...

[chefdave]

If we had PR for Westminster disillusioned Tories would deserting the Conservatives like a sinking ship and joining HMS UKIP. UKIP are already the second largest party for the Euro elections, and given Cameron's blunder on the in/out referendum that he promised but failed to deliver it wouldn't surprise me if UKIP win the next one outright.

[jesusandtequila]

(Original post by Birchington)
UKIP loses all credibility by their myopia over Europe. Once they withdraw us, what else will they do? It's amazing people are taking a single issue party of limited vision seriously.

A single issue party? Not so. they produced a very details manifesto including raising the personal allowance to around £12K, a flat tax, merging income tax and NICs and so on. http://www.ukip.org/content/ukip-policies - you'll notice that it's certainly not single issue. Their point is that we don't have the power to do many things whilst part of the EU, a point I agree with.

[monk_keys]

(Original post by jesusandtequila)
A single issue party? Not so. they produced a very details manifesto including raising the personal allowance to around £12K, a flat tax, merging income tax and NICs and so on. http://www.ukip.org/content/ukip-policies - you'll notice that it's certainly not single issue. Their point is that we don't have the power to do many things whilst part of the EU, a point I agree with.

Half of their economic policies are just 'leave the EU' in monetary terms, that's not an economic policy. Compare it to the Conservative policy sheet and it's almost pitiful.

I don't not support any political party by the way, it's just a comparison.

[jesusandtequila]

(Original post by monk_keys)
Half of their economic policies are just 'leave the EU' in monetary terms, that's not an economic policy. Compare it to the Conservative policy sheet and it's almost pitiful.

I don't not support any political party by the way, it's just a comparison.

Not quite true. Everyone is quite policy-lite at the moment except government who are, well, governing. If we scoot back to just before the election:

http://www.general-election-2010.co....festo-2010.pdf

Taking the economic and budgetary policies - there are 23 policies just on the budget and economy. Of those 23, only 4 even mention the EU, and I don't think that we could call a policy of replacing VAT with a local sales tax (which is not possible under EU law) is just saying 'leave the EU'.

Now, whilst people may or may not support their policies that's a whole different matter but to paint them as a single issue party is deeply unfair.

[monk_keys]

(Original post by jesusandtequila)
Not quite true. Everyone is quite policy-lite at the moment except government who are, well, governing. If we scoot back to just before the election:

http://www.general-election-2010.co....festo-2010.pdf

Taking the economic and budgetary policies - there are 23 policies just on the budget and economy. Of those 23, only 4 even mention the EU, and I don't think that we could call a policy of replacing VAT with a local sales tax (which is not possible under EU law) is just saying 'leave the EU'.

Now, whilst people may or may not support their policies that's a whole different matter but to paint them as a single issue party is deeply unfair.

Fair enough, I just went by the website which does paint them as a one issue party.

I wasn't here for the last election but we'll see in 2015 if they promote all their issues equally.

[anarchism101]

No, they won't. That's not to say they won't achieve their aims though.

While they often like to say they're not, in practice UKIP act like a single-issue party. They largely only talk about the EU, and emphasize their opposition to it on democratic grounds, with the immigration stuff being presented as a smaller factor. Which is a pretty sensible tactic, as it helps them steer clear of possibly uncomfortably controversial positions. Also it's their stand-out policy - what's the point of talking about policies that are already similar to one of the main parties' policies?

However, the problem with that is that it largely only works for national elections. People might be anti-EU and vote UKIP at general or European elections, but that plays a much smaller part at local level and in the devolved parliaments - note the Greens, a slightly smaller party, perform much better in local and devolved elections than UKIP, though generally worse in nationwide elections (Greens have 1 MNIA, 2 MLAs, 2 MSPs, 147 councillors, UKIP have 31 councillors and none of any of the others)

[Llamageddon]

To become larger they would have to adapt in such a way that frankly would alienate their core voters. I think for the forseeable future they will remain a protest vote with a small core of people who are passionately eurosceptic.

The major problems they have are the lack of quality candidates, not being able to draw in support from the centre, not having experience of government nor credible opportunity to form one, etc. I suspect they'll do OK for a few years then fade back into obscurity. Probably around the time Farage quits.

[Leon Trotsky]

(Original post by prog2djent)
That is what I'm suggesting, that's the point, left-right is only supposed to do with economics, no need to go further on what they are. You can't be right wing socially or left wing socially, for example, I think Drugs should be decriminalised at the top end and legalised at the bottom, and I think gay marriage, along with polygamy and incest should be legal if consenting, I think we should bring all troops home, imperialism has destroyed much potential progress of the world etc etc but I am pro-free market, very pro free market, I am right wing.

The left-right thing is stupid and doesn't cover enough, you sound the sort of persons that would know the 4 Axis measurement, most right wing people I know, and most right-wing people on this forum are party of the libertarian right. But under your definitions (and the propogandising media), we are somehow centrist because our economic views are right wing, yet are social views are left? Eh? No, out social views are libertarian and we are economically liberal.

You can get lefties who want to have stricter boarders, anti-muslims/black/non-white laws passed etc, but you are still left wing because you might favour protectionism over free trade, you might perfer military interventionism over staying out of the way, you might prefer lots of state control over the market. What I am decribing is the BNP, shock horror, a center-left party who happen to be extremely authoritarian and border line fascist (which is why they are centre left, since the fascism is pulling them to the extremely authoritarian right)



Pedantic, I know

Yeah that is pretty pedantic. I'm sure you understood what he meant. Still, at least you got to show off how much you know about politickz!!!1

[py0alb]

Only if the Tories fragment. There's simply not enough right wing idiots to go around otherwise

[Gridiron-Gangster]

(Original post by greenway)
With some of the population losing faith in the Tory party and feeling cheated and sold out by the lib-dems, and with growing levels of euroscepticism following all the trouble with the euro economy will people be more inclined to switch to the UKIP vote? I do not support UKIP I am merely asking this question from observations I have made

There's a possibility for them to become a "recognised" party with MPs like say the Greens and as people keep saying the Lib Dems' sellout practically ensures they'll never get into power for next 100 years. The most likely outcome is for Labour and the Conservatives supporter base to expand to the point where you're either "Labour or Tory" similarly to how in America you're either "A Democrat or Republican".

I can't see UKIP becoming a viable alternative or evening forming a significant opposition unless as someone else pointed out they encountered major defections from the Conservatives (or even Labour). What we saw in the European Parliament elections of 2009 was more of a backlash than a genuine interest/support for the UKIP.

[Leon Trotsky]

(Original post by Barden)
A disgruntled Lib-Den supporter won't swing to UKIP. The Conservatives maybe, but more likely the Greens or Labour...

Not necessarily. The so-called Orange Book Lib Dems who are more into free market laissez-faire approaches to the economy might well find that UKIP's economic policy is a better fit. Labour and certainly the Green Party, whilst possibly sharing some Lib Dems' views on social issues, may not share the same views on economic issues with them.

[Muscovite]

(Original post by prog2djent)
Er, no.

Right-left doesn't influence immigration, authoritarian statists vs libertarian affects that issue.

The most right wing party, the libertarian party, want an almost completely free boarder, whilst a whole bunch of leftist unionist and regional socialist parties want tighter controls.

The media and the state have done well into convinving the population right-left covers all areas and that nothing else exists outside that.

Someone's just discovered political compass

[Muscovite]

(Original post by Addzter)
Not necessarily. The so-called Orange Book Lib Dems who are more into free market laissez-faire approaches to the economy might well find that UKIP's economic policy is a better fit. Labour and certainly the Green Party, whilst possibly sharing some Lib Dems' views on social issues, may not share the same views on economic issues with them.

Liberal Democrat voters will clearly never vote UKIP; for a start UKIP shares none of the liberal values on abortion, homosexuality and law and order that the LibDems have. More importantly, the LDs are a strongly pro-European party - would they really vote for UKIP even on this issue alone?

[limetang]

Well it depends. If the parties address the issues which at the moment UKIP seems to be almost exclusively addressing then no. However if the parties ignore peoples opinions on the EU, don't offer a referendum etc. Then yes UKIP will get bigger, and arguably 'big'.

So in many ways it's impossible to say. It all depends on how current opinion changes, and what the current big parties do.

[Leon Trotsky]

(Original post by Muscovite)
Liberal Democrat voters will clearly never vote UKIP; for a start UKIP shares none of the liberal values on abortion, homosexuality and law and order that the LibDems have.

The Liberal Democrats who care more strongly about liberal economic policies than liberal social policies may well vote UKIP, yes.

More importantly, the LDs are a strongly pro-European party - would they really vote for UKIP even on this issue alone?

Not every Liberal Democrat is pro-EU.

[Cannotbelieveit]

Lets not forget there was a time when the SNP and Labour were small parties.