Comments on: Shock, shock, horror, horror

By: Chris Lightfoot

Chris Lightfoot — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 15:53:00 +0000

It's a statement about correlations. Most people who are significantly free-market are pro-war. If you like, interpret it as, 'these are the things which other people like you are likely to agree with'.

Is this run by a Liberal Democrat, I wonder...

As I've stated before, my web log is not party-political (and neither am I). I may be providing more evidence of this during the current election campaign....

By: Gert

Gert — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 18:20:00 +0000

Well, I'm down as pro-war, despite strongly disagreeing that the war was right thing to do.

How can they highlight a specific question out of many and then tell me I'm the opposite of what I told them?

Is this run by a Liberal Democrat, I wonder...

By: Chris Baldwin

Chris Baldwin — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 07:35:00 +0000

Well I’m insanely socially lefty, which makes sense, but economically I’m only slightly left of centre, which I disagree with. I guess my actual views are too bizarre for the questions to address them.

By: Matthew Turner

Matthew Turner — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 07:22:00 +0000

Fair enough. I had you down for three no's as I wasn't aware you were, with respect to (d), a member of the "decent-left".

In some ways your answers perhaps show the limitations of surveys. I don't agree with you on (d) (it seems a description of what policy should be for the current generation, not the current) but I probably agree with you on (a). However I didn't say so as I thought to do so might give the impresssion one thinks THIS privatisation has been a success, which it hasn't really.

By: john b

john b — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 19:31:00 +0000

a) Yes (I believe their fuckedness is due to a combination of years of neglect and an inept privatisation structure, not the inherent failure of privatisation. GNER is a bloody good railway, cos it inherited tracks that broadly worked and improved customer service).
b) No.
c) Yes (GM food doesn't bother me, because I've not seen any argument beyond 'buggering around with nature is bad' that convinces me it's wrong. I'm strongly opposed to rich-world companies extracting royalties from third-world farmers for seed patents, but that reflects a broader dislike of the current IP regime rather than a dislike of GM food).
d) Yes (without the belief that the war was inherently the right thing to do or that Tony Blair was right to bring us into it the way he did)
e) Yes (I'm 'right-wing' on pensions issues, mostly because of the way that so many people in the current pension-age generation have benefited massively from house-price inflation and really don't need additional government subsidy).
f) No.

Think those were my only two "no"s. On the other hand I was extremely pissed when I took the test, so I may have got some questions wrong...

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 13:16:00 +0000

I'm wondering how JOhn you got your 'insanely economically right-wing' result. The results page gives these as sample questions:

Britain's railways should remain in private ownership
Rich people already pay enough tax
I am comfortable with the way that genetic engineering is being used in the food industry
The UK was right to go to war in Iraq
Most people should take responsibility for saving enough for their retirement, rather than relying on the Government to pay a big enough pension to live on
This country should try to become more like the United States of America than like France or Germany

Surely you must have answered "No" to at least three of these?

By: parker

parker — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 13:07:00 +0000

my favourite bit is where the arrow points ‘you’ to the modal value of left-wingedness for grauniad readers…

By: Larry

Larry — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 12:59:00 +0000

I’m insanely socially lefty, and insanely economically fence-straddlingly centry/don’t knowy. Interestingly, socially, I’m to the left of (or as left as) 100% of women.