My spectrum

I've spoken to my politics lecturer about what spectrum I should use when addressing my question. He advised that I do one that looks specifically at my area of interest which is the parties attitude to social policy. Therefore, I have decided to go with a two point spectrum as seen in my last piece of research. This means I will be able to look at the question with a broader view.

The spectrum I have decided on is the vertical axis being athoritarian at the top and libertarian at the bottom and the horizontal axis being interventional in the publics social life on the left and non-interventional in the publics social life on the right. This my lecturer would suggest would work as left wing parties would traditionally intervene in order to bring up the minimum standard of living of the public. This works with conservatives and doesn't come up with the problem Robert Leach finds with the scale revolutionary and reactionary as one nation tories would intervene more in the publics social life than a Tory such as Thatcher. This is shown with Disraeli, a one nation Tory, saying "power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the people." (http://www.searchquotes.com/quotation/Power_has_only_one_duty_-_to_secure_the_social_welfare_of_the_People./152235/

In order to decide the measuring points on my scale Felix has suggested that I get manifestos from different parties and then get people with different politucal views to mark whether they think that is left or right way of thinking. When this is done I will see what is the most common left, right and central. This will mean my ideas won't sway how I measure the parties on the scale and will give a more accurate picture of where the parties are on the scale.