{"id":81100,"date":"2025-03-26T09:46:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T09:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=81100"},"modified":"2025-03-26T09:46:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T09:46:41","slug":"from-centre-right-to-hard-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/03\/26\/from-centre-right-to-hard-left\/","title":{"rendered":"From centre right to hard left"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This was drawn to my attention today by commentator John Boxall. It was in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/politics\/uk-politics\/2023\/02\/letter-of-the-week-what-conservatism-knows\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The New Statesman<\/a> in 2023:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In 1962 I was a Conservative. I believed privilege could only be justified by service, high taxes on very high incomes were necessary to prevent an entrepreneurial economy becoming a rentier economy, and Keynesian growth would finance public service improvements and a welfare state that steadily reduced inequality. I was suspicious of ideologically driven, large-scale change. These were the mainstream policies of the Macmillan government at the time. In 60 years I have moved from centre right to hard left without changing my opinions.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dr Stephen Watkins, Oldham, Lancashire<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That is so right.<\/p>\n<p>I was once upon a time on the right of Labour. After all, I very firmly believed in a mixed economy as the bedrock for social justice.<\/p>\n<p>Now I am way to the left of almost every elected Labour MP. I have not changed. Labour and politics in general has.<\/p>\n<p>But does that make me far left? Of course not. I remain on the left of centre, undoubtedly, but a decided moderate, and happy to be so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was drawn to my attention today by commentator John Boxall. It was in The New Statesman in 2023: In 1962 I was a Conservative.<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/03\/26\/from-centre-right-to-hard-left\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81102,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81100\/revisions\/81102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}