Mat Bowles

In actual terms, someone earning about £25K today is close to the average, and probably struggling to get by. But a hundred years ago, that would've been a very comfortable living. Two hundred years ago, that would've put you in the very wealthiest sector of society, with servants to do your bidding and every need catered for.

Triple that today, you're looking at a good earning for a member of the professions: a doctor, a lawyer, an MP. A hundred years ago, it'd give youa millionaires lifestyle. Two hundred years ago, a billionaires lifestyle. So I thought I'd do a poll...




( My answers to the above poll, with some explanations )

Chris Dillow responds to the question:

Iain Dale is inviting people to complete the sentence, "you know you're a Conservative when..."
OK. Here goes:
( 7 typical unthinking Tory positions )

The comments to both posts are comedy brilliance as well. Plus more than half at Iain's made me want to say "no doofus, that makes you a liberal" (note the lack of capitalisation there is deliberate, not all liberals are Liberals, and unfortunately a chunk of Liberals aren't liberal—there are also liberals within all the main British parties).

NB: ( Caveats about conservatism )

Hmm, I know, let's turn this into a little meme. Duncan informed me earlier that Facebook now has a Political Compass application^[1]. My liking of the Compass as a good way of broadly assisting you place yourself and opinions remains strong, and the app is fairly good, so...

Either install the Facebook App ^[2]or complete the test on the main website, and post your results either in a post or in a comment here. It's been ages since we did this, lots of new friends and people may have clarified their opinions if they've done it before.

I'm now at:

Economic Left/Right: -2.50

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.69

( Political Compass graph )
Which means I've moved (again) further down (I used to be at -5) and also closer to the center (I was at -5 there as well). So that's 4 times I've taken it (third on here), and each time I've moved further down and further to the middle. I remain convinced that it's because they're classifiying support for markets on the left/right spectrum when as they're strongly an aspect of econic activity, they should be on the up/down axis.

Alternatively, of course, we could try to answer Iain's questions: You know you're a conservative when.

Anyone else looking forward to there being an actual Tory policy on something? I dunno, thinking of running an anti Govt tactical voting campaign isn't made easier when it involves you persuading people to vote for Mr Cameron's Flip Flops...

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( Footnotes... )