Terms like “left” and “centre” lose all meaning internationally.
It’s clear to everyone in the ripe that the democrats are on the right leaning side of “centre right”, but half of America thinks they are “far left”. A party that can’t even implement a national health service.
I am not talking "internationally". Within the UK and European context, The Guardian is left-wing and has many very left-wing columnists. Do read the public comments on articles, and you'll see this is the readership, too (at least the "vocal" ones, perhaps).
Sure overall it is not as left-wing as, say, Le Monde Diplomatique in France (someone mentioned it in another comment) but still.
Overall, Wikipedia is quite accurate: "The paper's readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion, and the term "Guardian reader" is used to imply a stereotype of a person with modern progressive, left-wing or "politically correct" views." [1]
I live in the UK and this is simply not true. The Guardian is left-wing, for sure, in the sense that it is left of center. But it is not generally regarded as "very left-wing", nor are many of its columnists.
Public comments on newspaper sites are a very poor judge of the newspaper's political position. Sometimes, even Daily Mail comment threads skew left!
I am not sure what is your disagreement, then? It is left-wing, you agree.
They do have very left-wing columnists, too, quite a few of them, most famous being Owen Jones.
Nobody said "very" left-wing. Nobody seems to disagree that it is left-wing.
From the GP:
> The Guardian is left-wing and has many very left-wing columnists.
Sure there's some subtle distinction between the paper itself being one thing but still having "many very left-wing columnists", but not a lot.
Is this what it has come to? Trying to twist every single word as much as possible against their author in the least honest way possible?
I stand with what you quoted. This was a honest and rather matter-of-fact statement... But I obviously deserver to be shot for it by the "progressists" it has somehow managed to offend.
The author of what I quoted seems to have reacted to it differently than you are doing. Or perhaps even very differently ...
Could you please name one of these "very left-wing columnists" ? Or maybe two, since you claim it has "many" of them?
Owen Jones is perhaps as close as they come to "very left-wing", and while he is a bona fide socialist, he's certainly not a revolutionary.
> that the democrats are on the right leaning side of “centre right”
This is repeated frequently, but, no, just no.
Name one position by the Democrats that is to the right of typical center to center-right parties such as CDU/CSU, La République En Marche, PP, CDA, ÖVP.
Immigration, abortion, environmental regulations?
Public healthcare, tuition-free higher education, gun regulation, unions, social security, taxation, business regulation, criminal penalties.
On some/many social issues (minorities, abortion, drug policy) Democrats are relatively liberal even by European standards.
Interestingly until very recently even the republicans are way to the left of European countries on immigration.
All of these parties are equivalent to the dems. They're rightwing, not center.
There's been a trend recently to call them center-right to make the distinction with far right parties which were anecdotal 50 years ago, but make no mistake, when a party is called center-right, it's a rightwing party, not a center party that could align either with the left or the right depending on the topic.
I can't comment on the others but "La Republique en Marche" in France (Macron's party) is not rightwing. It goes from centre right to the centre left. From a British perspective it pretty much covers the right of Labour, the Lib Dems, and the left of the Tories.
Macron himself is very centrist to centre left. He started in government in Hollande's cabinet, which was a Socialist Party (= Labour) government. Many top figures in Macron's party now are former Socialist Party.
The rightwing party in France now is effectively the RN (although it is still referred to as "far-right" for historical and tactical reasons).
From a french perspective, it is definitely rightwing.
You would have trouble finding which major policy they made that aligns with the left, while many of their policies effectively dismantled workers’ rights.
Also the former socialists were from the PS’ right wing, which was (in a classic sense) liberal economically as well as on societal issues. That wing was happy supporting rightwing laissez-faire policies. That was the reason Hollande’s PS destroyed itself.
This is quite surreal... especially after I've just described the French perspective.
This reminds me of Maoist China where just suggesting a milder approach was enough to get you labeled "rightwinger"! Similarly, the views of the French far-left are not the "French perspective".
> From a British perspective [...]
> especially after I've just described the French perspective.
Make up your mind.
> Similarly, the views of the French far-left are not the "French perspective".
No one in France is seriously challenging the idea that Macron is rightwing. He's been pursuing the classic rightwing agenda, and has years of political alliance with the other rightwing parties in France.
But then again, considering your talking point is that RN is the only rightwing party, I'm not sure we're having a honest discussion here.