Left–Right continuum

   A term having its origins in the position adopted by various groups at the first meeting of the French Estates-General in the early days of the French Revolution (1789). It refers to the spectrum on which it is often convenient to locate parties, stretching from the leftwing of parties which believe in radical or even revolutionary change, through the socialists and centre parties, to parties of the moderate right which oppose change, to the extremist parties of a Fascist or Nazi ideology. Inevitably, such labelling over-simplifies the position of some parties, but it enables us to make comparisons between them.

   Today, applied in Britain, these labels can be misleading and confusing. People who seem leftwing on one issue may adopt a rightwing approach on another. More seriously, the division of Left and Right has become somewhat blurred, for supporters of New Labour increasingly employ terminology and adopt approaches traditionally associated with the British Conservative Party. Nonetheless, the term remains convenient shorthand by which to summarise different attitudes on important political, economic and social questions.