Far right in UK 'weakest for 20 years'

That is probably just a ripple effect from Yewtree. While shocking, calling it a fringe issue would be generous. It has no bearing on any of the actual important, systemic issues around underfunding of public services which rightly or wrongly (clue: wrongly) are at the core of the immigration debate.

Equally there is a fall in far-left parties. Why? Because the democratic state of the UK is awful. Every party has become more centralized, with the Conservatives showing Labour tendencies, and Labour showing Conservative tendencies. Everything has become homogenized, and as a result the fringes are being eradicated.

It was rather central to white working class voters in some of the areas where the bnp was advancing during the 2000s, but otoh I don't remember anyone ever hearing anyone worrying about the costs on public services before the banks crashed the economy.

It was rather central to white working class voters in some of the areas where the bnp was advancing during the 2000s, but otoh I don't remember anyone ever hearing anyone worrying about the costs on public services before the banks crashed the economy.

If you're going to engage in armchair politics in any sort of serious way you have to acknowledge the two-dimensional spectrum. Of course it's hardly the height of psephological sophistication but it explains a lot and it's easy to understand.

Just because the BNP aren't a popular party doesn't mean their policies aren't drawn from the same cultural traditions and human tendencies which created all the other political parties/movements. They have to be analysed the same way to understand them, piss and vinegar won't cut it.

From your anger you seem to think this amounts to the other poster defending the BNP. This is simply not the case. You don't have to be extreme right economically in order to be evil.

(But it helps, right Kippers? )

I'm not angry. And secondly, you don't need to engage in politics to such an extreme depth to formulate an opinion. Nor do I want to. Do you engage in thermodynamics in how your fridge works to make a decision on what fridge to buy from your local store? I mean, that is effectively what the logic is here. No one cares where they lie in the spectrum (in terms of what he was describing). Its entirely irrelevant to average joe. What people care about is the issues that affect them (for right or wrong) and that doesn't entail needing to know about where the BNP party lie on the political spectrum (based on whether they are authoritarian or whatever he was harping on about).

I'll bring another analogy here. So MP's represent the people. They are voted in. Does that mean the electorate have to understand every facet of every bill that is being voted on before they can make a decision or who to vote for? Do you really think MP's read every facet of the bills they vote on that come from the House of Lords? No, they don't. They read a summary. Now from your viewpoint, the classification of the party might appear a simple thing that people should know, I've not necessarily disagreed with your viewpoint, but I suggested to him that if anyone is to be blamed for misinformation, blame must lie with journalists and not the general public. You cannot expect the electorate to be that engaged with politics in the same way that you can't expect an MP to understand every facet of legislation he or she is voting on.

Now my final point was down to opinion. Will I waste time analysing where the BNP lie? Do I really care? No. I don't. Does that make me an idiot? No, it doesn't. Does it make someone else an idiot. No, it doesn't. Does it make me angry or defensive to point that out to someone, again, no it doesn't. My point is its better for the electorate to actually focus on more important issues at hand as most sensible people know what the BNP are about, why would they waste any more energy discussing them. We're not talking about people who actively study politics or history etc who may have reasons to do so, just the general electorate.

I'd agree with this. While i think that the skin colour problem is largely a non-issue (that is to say that whatever we did to get the 'blacks' accepted after the war worked), i do think that there is a large amount of Islamophobia bubbling away beneath the surface north of the home counties. I suspect that if Ukip had taken the line after Paris that it was Islam's fault or proposed closing the door to Muslims then while there may be plenty of shocked Londonders crying about it, he'd probably get a good cheer in the north where Islamic populations are higher and this type of problem is more common place. I suspect an investigation into Bradford would made Rotherham look tame.

Channel 4 has pulled a documentary about Bradford social workers dealing with child abuse from its schedule tonight after local police warned the programme could inflame racial tension in the city.

The network, which normally takes great pride in its reputation for stirring up controversy, has made the self-censorship move "as a responsible broadcaster" and because of "exceptional circumstance", a Channel 4 spokeswoman said.

Channel 4's documentary, Edge of the City, focuses on a wide range of cases handled by Bradford social services, including child abuse involving Asian men targeting young white girls, which was of particular concern to West Yorkshire police.

Remember this? http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/may/20/channel4.broadcasting1

May 2004.

then nothing seemed to happen til about 2011/12 ish

It's orders and orders and orders of magnitude less complicated than thermodynamics, it's a model with two dimensions to it. It's no more complicated than looking into your fridge's energy consumption and storage capacity.



Again, no, it's nowhere near as complicated as understanding all aspects of legislation. In fact, ironically, it gives you a good idea of where every party is coming from so you don't have to undertake a deep analysis of every piece of legislation.



You did point it out with anger, you bit the person's head off. The difference between the BNP and UKIP is important, just throwing around terms like "far-right" conflates the two together when a fair amount of their policies and electorates are very different.

We're not really trying to canvass the public here, are we, we're trying to discuss the underlying philosophies. Simply put, the issue of defining the far right is implicit in the OP: it's the question of how the far right (by a certain definition) can be "at its weakest for 20 years" when UKIP are so popular. The whole thread is predicated around problems with the definition of "far-right", which the political compass model elegantly solves.

I'd say the political compass is atop a magnet right now.

But let me address your points:

Top Paragraph:
Yes, but I could also argue that there are only a handful laws of thermodynamics. My point is that (and I stated this earlier), why should the general public be called idiots for not knowing a model. Rather, in my mind, it should be the people who write about these parties incorrectly.

Middle paragraph:
Or you could understand their legislation and make a better informed decision. And, even if people knew about the model is it wise to suggest people make decisions based on where parties are formed on it as opposed to reading the general manifesto's?

Last two paragraphs:
Yeah, talking about ideologies is fine and discussing it in that situation I can understand that etc etc. But I reiterate, the average joe doesn't need to know that something is authoritarian to make an informed decision.

Why can't someone make an informed decision based on simply reading the party policies (amongst keeping up with daily news, what candidates are saying etc). Just because someone doesn't know the complete placement on some two model of where they lie doesn't make them idiots. Why I called him out on it is because if it did make them (all) idiots, it would suggest that the majority of voters aren't capable of making informed decisions and that is simply absurd to say the least.

You said you're not trying to canvass the public here. Yes, I understand that. But when he called all people idiots, that is pretty much what he was doing which is why I called him out on it.

General point:
Please note there is also a difference between speaking your mind and being angry. I concede I may be outspoken, but I haven't been angry.