Brown Damaging the Left

One thing that SmearGate has highlighter, is the damage New Labour have done hasn't been localised to just their party. This has be evident in the attacks on New Labour are often followed by attacks on left philosophy, yet are Labour even lefties, and is the left really to blame?

Being left wing traditionally means either liberal or socialist, yet politics isn't quite that simple due to the "third way". The graph below takes this into account and shows the political position of the main parties over time. Left and right is an economic position, up and down is social. The Political Compass site goes into more details.

click on image to enlarge

New Labours problem becomes quite apparent from looking at the graph. Firstly they've moved into a Tory area while flying the flag of socialism. Secondly the real problem lies not in left or right ideology, but authoritarianism.

Gordon Brown isn't Robin Hood, a large amount of the money he takes is funding projects like ID cards, databases for the NHS/DNA, CCTV and "the war on terror". Just start adding together billions spent and committed, it equals hundreds of billions. They do have the left trait of higher spending, though it isn't because the "left are strong in them", it's because they throw money at problems without thinking what the cause of them are. Essentially it's a token gesture to appease old Labour.

Preconceptions of what political parties stand for aren't helpful in modern politics, like society they've become diversified. However unlike society New Labour didn't develop, they consciously decided to be left, right and centre, to appeal to as many people as they could. Yet it left them with no way to join old and new labour together, effectively becoming a car without a engine. Hence their need to constantly try to fool and control others, those that can start their cars, don't lash out at the passenger.