Right-wing and the changing language of politics

Political definitions like left-wing and right-wing are still meaningful, writes Colin Randall.

What is the value of political definitions like left- and right-wing? Photo: Charles Krupa / AP

“Dad’s become so right-wing.” So said the elder daughter I once caught inviting a canvasser for Britain’s Conservative party into the house.

Fathers have been called worse. Any hurt feelings soon gave way to the thought that when it comes to politics, words have lost meaning.

Is it really right-wing to read a particular newspaper, the politics of which may have little or nothing to do with the choice or purchase? Or to think ways must be found of making immigration more selective and seem less of an invasion? Or that no decent person could have the least sympathy for ISIL?

If it is, we must begin to wonder where that leaves someone who does or believes all of that but also, for example, despises the essentially racist parties that have changed the political landscape of Europe.

For the record, as I await fuller explanation from my daughter, I have never considered myself of the right. I grew up in a left-of-centre household even if my mother confided shortly before her death that she had not only been fond of saying she would vote for the centrist Liberals “if only they had a chance”, but had actually done so, an act of spousal rebellion in our part of northern England.

But what does being left, right or centre say about a person? It used to be simpler. An old-fashioned man or woman of the left would advocate public ownership of key aspects of daily life, the old “Clause Four” of the British Labour party’s constitution seeking “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”. On the right, people calling themselves Conservatives broadly wanted things to remain as they were with attachment to time-honoured values and the encouragement of individual enterprise. Liberals, who became by stages the UK’s Liberal Democrats of today, advocated the best of both worlds.

These days, it can be difficult to identify any significant difference between the competing policies of the main parties, and this is the case in many countries. Everyone scrambles for the middle ground, the support of non-partisan voters whose choice may well decide who takes power.

Yet still we toss “left-wing” and “right-wing” around in debate or everyday conversation as if using the adjectives sufficed to confirm the goodness or otherwise of individuals and groups.

If we try to insist our own views have changed little over the years, we may find ourselves being reminded of another of those quotations erroneously attributed to Winston Churchill.

There is no evidence that the eloquent British statesman ever said, as is occasionally suggested: “If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.”

In fact, something similar has been said at different times by different speakers and it would not have surprised me to learn that Churchill saw merit in the view.

The lecturer and author Ralph Keyes wrote in 1992 that the sentiment’s first appearance may be traced to the 19th century French historian and statesman François Guizot: “Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head.” Socialism or liberalism replaces republicanism in the later variants.

Needless to say, others challenge this version of its origins. So far, no one disputes that my daughter spoke the words attributed to her. I would stop her pocket money if she had not left home years ago.

Colin Randall is a former executive editor of The National