I have no idea what ring wing means either.
David Mitchell comes slightly to mind, but he's also totally left wing. So... God knows.

It's where Theo Walcott and Aaron Lennon play.

Lennon and Bale are increasingly switching flanks at Spurs, as well as cutting into the centre, so even in footbal the question is not clear cut.

Quote: Westcountryman @ August 16 2011, 2:40 PM BST

I'm not really sure what rightwing means to be honest, just as I'm not sure what leftwing means. You get big government rightwingers and leftwingers and small government rightwingers and leftwingers, libertarian leftwingers and rightwingers and authoritarian leftwingers and rightwingers and the same with just about all of the various, major issues.

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Try the political spectrum quiz.

I come out about here - about the same as the Dalai Lama or Ghandi.

This one is very American but it's easy to find others online.

I hate those quizzes because the questions always force you to choose options that don't represent your full views. Plus it seems to say that leftwing economics is socialist and rightwing economics is unrestrained capitalist, without really explaining why.

Apparently this is my ideological position;

You are a center-left moderate social authoritarian.
Left: 2.21, Authoritarian: 3.17

I think the moderate social authoritarian part is a bit of blinkered and unsympathetic way to describe by social and cultural conservatism, nay traditionalism. No doubt there are many social and cultural liberals who would disagree. The economic part says very little about my economic and political views, I'm a old Tory/hardline Burkean conservative. I am 'anti-capitalist' I suppose, but more from the Radical Tory, or Tory Radical, Blake-Ruskin-Cobbett-Chesterton position than anything socially democratic or socialist.

So, in a roundabout way, I think that quiz is a pretty good example that leftwing and rightwing don't mean much and that libertarian and authoritarian are quite simplistic designations as well.

Quote: Westcountryman @ August 16 2011, 2:40 PM BST

I'm not really sure what rightwing means to be honest, just as I'm not sure what leftwing means. You get big government rightwingers and leftwingers and small government rightwingers and leftwingers, libertarian leftwingers and rightwingers and authoritarian leftwingers and rightwingers and the same with just about all of the various, major issues.

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Now that's a fascinating can of worms. The whole notion of political classification is a bit confused and barmy really, and it's not at all helped by misuse and misunderstanding of terms, e.g. conservative is not necessarily Conservative.

As you've seen hinted at with the quiz posted about above, as far as 'left' and 'right' go, they only actually describe economic views, as I understand it. Social matters are, as shown in the graph, drawn as the vertical axis to complete the diagram. For some reason that I've never quite understood, the traditional top end - authoritarianism - has been latterly equated with the right, and the lower - libertarianism - more with the left.

To take a look at the domestic policies of the Nazi party for example, many would be toward the top left of any such graph, but they're always categorised as right-wing. Similarly in modern politics, the BNP are apparently a 'far right' party, but they're an anti-globalist party who want to nationalise industry and introduce protectionist, nationalist legislation. They'd find far more bedfellows in Labour than Conservative ranks. But then they also claim that "personal tax" is far too high, which flips the other way.

So God-knows where the 'right' labels for such groups have come from exactly. An ignorant press? An increasingly left-liberal media keen to besmirch, directly or by assocation, groups who actually are of the right? I don't know, and this isn't the thread for that (woops), but parties like the Nazis and BNP are such mental mish-mashes of policies and ideas from across the board that it's impossible to accurately classify them at all, truthfully.

As to the original topic and the problem with contemporary satire; I just don't think anyone's heart is really in it, or - ultimately - that far away from anyone else in order to be noticeable. It also strikes me that many of the people in charge, be they TV commissioners or publishers, just don't really want to air any fundamentally radical views. Perhaps that's in some way a good thing though - perhaps it's a sign that, after centuries of great extremes, society is on the whole converging to a more level place, where there's less room or reason for disagreement? So today's "satire", as stated, is more of mocking individual people and policies that one dislikes, rather than needing, wishing, or being able to go any deeper. I'm rather thinking 'aloud' here...