Take the political quiz

[Peter]

UK specific version

[Bob Singleton]

I fell right between Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama on the libertarian left part of the chart... excellent company to be in!!

That top right hand quarter is a real rogue's gallery though... Bush, Sharron, Blair, Chirac and Berlusconi... uuuggghhh!

[mart]

So its only the "leftists" who are slanted? Isn't that a slanted view?

Mart

[mart]

I'm jostling elbows with you Bob.

Mart

[Officer Dibble]

Ah, but hold on, there is one figure of note Bimmercat. That's Officer D's quadrant.

This does underline what I've become aware of over the last few years - there is no one out there representing my views. There are two main political groupings throughout the western world. The free market, back to basics, religious, hypocritical, middle-class, moralist fogeys and the pretentious, hand wringing, middle-class, middle-aged, socialist, public sector loving left. I've often wondered why there are these two distinct groups in politics? Why isn't there more mixing and matching of policies? For instance, why do I have to go to church and hate porn if I just want to be a free market business man? Why does my wedge have to be spent on brainless, malevolent, sink estate scum-bags and corrupt, incompetent, African dictators and regimes when I just want to chip in and see that know one will be left on the sidewalk when they are skint and sick? Why can't I get right to the reality of social problems and openly call a spade, a spade, if I think we should all chip in to have a high quality public service broadcaster? I like the odd bits of every party's policies. It's just that I can't be doing with the other 75% of their bull.

I've come to the conclusion that you are only offered this simple left/right choice because a lot of folks don't really know what day it is, are full of shite and haven't got the requisite intellectual scope, or the objective sense of self required to formulate their own rational opinions. So, they take the easy route and plump to support one of the two established teams. Then, when questioned, they don't have to explain or justify themselves - because that's a tough thing to do if you not very clued up about anything or haven't a robust objective and rational view of your personal position in the universe. They can then get away with speaking in sound-bites and/or regurgitating quotations from some 'little red book' and only the most perceptive amongst us will realise that they're talking bollocks and don't really know whether they're on this Earth or 'Fuller's.'

Officer Dibble

[Pervert]

And me, funnily enough. Maybe one of us is the true Dalai Lama.