The Political Compass Reveals All About British Party Politics

This is the webpage I have been sharing with the internet all day.

The political compass is a personal test one can take to see how their views are defined in the political lingo, and how they compare with people they know and various political figures throughout history. It is based on two scales: the left-right scale (which indicates how much control a government should have over economics) and the libertarian-authoritarian scale (which indicates how much control a government should have socially). Your result places you into one of four quadrants: libertarian-right (lower economic control, lower social control) libertarian-left (higher economic control, lower social control) authoritarian right (lower economic control, higher social control) and authoritarian-left (higher economic control, higher social control).

The site managers have run the policies of each of the British political parties through the quiz, to see where they stand.  As you can see from the results, both Labour and the Conservatives are in the authoritarian-right quadrant, and the Lib Dems are in the libertarian-right quadrant. This means several things:

• The majority of people who take the test end up in the libertarian-left quadrant, or near the inner edges of the libertarian-right or authoritarian-left quadrant. This means that the platforms of the major parties are very much at odds with what the public want.
• Labour and the Conservatives have very similar ideologies in real life, despite how much they bicker. This confirms what many people are saying; that the major parties are becoming almost indistinguishable, and that we are essentially choosing between two shades of conservative when we vote.
• Labour in particular are in the complete opposite quadrant to where they were when the party was founded, and to where they traditionally present themselves. Which is the reason the Labour party annoys me so much. 
• All of the big three are firmly in the right, which means none of them will do what nearly everyone agrees in necessary and take on the banks to prevent another financial crisis like that of 2007 onwards. None of them are likely to reduce inequality, either, or put more investment in jobs and poorer communities. 
• However much the Tories criticise Labour for supporting the "nanny state", and however much Labour call the Conservative party socially regressive, both parties are authoritarian, and both are likely to place constraints on your personal life. 

The Green party are the only all-UK party in the libertarian-left quadrant of the continuum. Which means just one thing:

• Everyone should vote Green.

So in summary, if you take the test and find yourself to be an authoritarian-right guy or gal, then vote for anyone you like, and enjoy being able to laugh heartily at the rest of us.
Otherwise, vote Green. (Or possibly Lib Dem if you feel optimistic.)