Marios Richards

Hmm - I don't see much evidence that variation in treatment correlates with length of taboo.

I mean, it's the former East Germany where the AfD is strongest.

Miserable to take family responsibility for it, miserable to take legislative responsibility for it.

I remain of the opinion that the key dynamic here is between the Public (families/their doctors) and Political Elites, neither of which - wholly understandably - wants to take responsibility for either helping people die or choosing not to help people die.

Tough on Labour councillors, tough on the causes of Labour councillors.

Also, the election where this supposedly 'worked' ... was the one where they pivoted *even harder* to the Ec. Left.

In this case the question is "would this Labour govt collapse fiscally if it tried to govern from <where it was perceived to be in July 2024>?".

I don't think so - I'm not an economist, but those who are seem to think that the risk is more that markets are averse to figures that obv don't add up.

Political projects *do need to obey basic geometrical constraints* - but that's a necessary but not a sufficient constraint.

Specifically, there are real world consequences of political compass positions, even if they're only fully come to fruition in govt.

It's a good question because the details do matter.

Positional issues/capacity have been covered in the other thread/by other people.

But there's also a basic point that positions on the political compass aren't automatically equivalent.

^FWIW, this was my first thought 10 months ago when it first became really apparent that Labour's perceived position had shifted it between Greens and LD as it's support collapsed across the Ec Left 1/3 of the pol comp.

The Conservatives *and every centre-right party in a democracy across the globe regardless of immigration level* - this is the one thing I *don't* blame the Conservatives for!

Once the dam breaks (1997!), I think there's always going to be a party there (the weirdness is the post-WWII period).

(rather than imagineering the possibility of hyperspace jump across the political compass just because anything else means conceding the facts of geometry to factional Labour party enemies - Euclid no pasaran!)

It's *extra aggravated* because they're trumpeted policy of trying to edge closer to Reform voters ...

... would in actual fact mean moving back to their normal position ec left/clockwise of the Greens.

I don't think they handled it well at all, but they have the excuse of half a century of inexperience. Labour doesn't have that and insofar as they are now experiencing "our ec left flank used to be similarly unthreatened" it's totally self-inflicted.

The Conservative situation is different in that they had 1945-1992 with one flank ~completely free of competition and then suddenly had to adjust to a political normalisation.

We're talking about reversing a shift that only happened between July 2024 and May 2025 - we're in a real outlier moment where Labour is wedged between the Greens and LDs (and experiencing why that's uncomfortable).

Because the Conservatives *never were* more Authoritarian (anti-clockwise on polcomp) than Reform/precursors, but Labour *never have been* more Economic Right (anti-clockwise on polcomp) *until May 2025*.

(vi) *Is* Labour particularly well positioned to answer "who runs the place?"

(iv) there is no reason to think this is "tactical behaviour aimed at blocking Reform" (that was, after all, *Labour's* pitch!

(v) Labour's support collapse July 2024-May 2025 is clearly visibly on its Economic Left flank - exactly where people have been shifting to Green VI

(i) it's not a one-off by-election, this is part of an obvious trend visible since May 2025

(ii) no evidence (commentary/speculation != evidence!) for this being driven by Gaza

(iii) what this govt has gone through in 18 months is as far from the "usual anti-incumbent drift" as it gets

I'm sorry, but it really isn't.

Pretty much every part of this is wrong.

I don't say this as someone trying to make a case for a Economic Left shift for the Labour Party - I really don't have feelings about economics - it's just not consistent with any of the available data.

Ah - I see it too now (on my laptop ... but not on my desktop!). Will look into it (/other less unstable app hosting options).

Sadly, it's a very lazy interface for an app (so quite large and unwieldy, only worth clicking on on desktop with decent internet)!

Even the Danish Social Democrats rotated around the political compass (the campaign where they were perceived as more social authoritarian was the same one where they were perceived as *a lot* more economic left).

The main problem with Labour's strategy is that they appear to be imagining doing a "knight's move" across the political compass that ... just doesn't appear to exist as a possibility.

I mean that simply on the basis that no party has ever done that across all the (UK only) data I poured in.

py.cafe/app/MariosRi...

So I did this positioning/support exercise using political compass data for BES respondents so the two orthogonal axes are represented explicitly.

I'm not taking a position on which is the "real" left, just focussing on the data / geometry.

Some might say, perhaps, more than the average Spectator reader (certainly the average Spectator writer).

If we're looking at Integration Risk, the people with 20-40 more years in the labour market are the lowest threat.

Not just a "sectarian" white working class issue, but also all the many "I'm just so scared you people don't realise how much Muslims share my conservative values" articles miss is that British Muslims are really young and have a lot of contact with other young Brits.

Unclear how much this is "I am unserious person, when you take what I say seriously and look for consistency, more fool you!" vs "How can she be working class if she has social liberal values? No, no - she's just a poor middle class person."

Sidenote ... this is also the point where Labour was "closest" to Reform in the sense of best able to potentially peel voters off (relative competence/valence allowing).

(The only other actual path is *rotating through the Lib Dems then the Conservatives*)

Also, Labour **was** to the left (economic/anti-clockwise on polcomp) of the Greens ever since there *was* a Green Party **until May 2025*.

So this would, in fact, simply mean Labour *going back to where it was (perceived to be) when it won/the Tories lost in 2024*.