Political labels are useful – but only in moderation
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Version 0 of 1. Extremist, far-right, far-left, radical are all labels that have been applied to some of the political parties and organisations, both in the UK and in mainland Europe, that have recently come to the fore. How do journalists decide which of these adjectival phrases to apply, and how useful are they to the reader? One reader who wrote on 28 January disapproves of the Guardian’s choice of terms for the Greek party Syriza: “I wish to register a strong protest against the Guardian’s frequent description of Syriza, in both news stories and leader columns, as ‘far-left’. Firstly, this description is simply inaccurate. No rational analysis based on the two-century existence of political ‘left/right’ terminology could place Syriza on the far left. If any party in Greece in 2015 could be classified as ‘far-left’, it is the KKE (Greek Communist Party). Secondly, current English usage of the word ‘far’ in this type of political context carries a stigmatising implication of ‘extremist’, and often ‘dangerous extremist’ (consider the parties the Guardian and others commonly label ‘far-right’). Syriza may well be viewed as dangerous extremists by the rich, who benefit, at the expense of everyone else, from the political and economic system currently prevailing in the West. But I find it astonishing and alarming that The Guardian should choose to give succour to such self-serving vested interests, when for 36% of Greek voters and - to judge by Tuesday’s letters page - a significant majority of Guardian readers Syriza represents the best hope of a fairer alternative. “The English language has a well-established adjective that would describe Syriza more neutrally, more accurately and with only one more typographic character than ‘far-left’, and I urge you to adopt it. It is ‘leftwing’.” I asked Helena Smith, the Guardian’s Athens correspondent, why she used the term. She said: “I almost invariably refer to Syriza as the ‘radical left’ party. This is because Syriza itself defines itself as a radical left party (it is an acronym for Coalition of the Radical Left).” In the early days of its time in opposition, at the height of Greece’s public debt crisis, Smith was chastised by senior Syriza politicians for referring to it as a “far-left” party. “‘We are radicals on the sphere of the left,’ I was told. That, of course, may be open to debate following developments in recent weeks but there is no doubt that there are factions within Syriza that do belong to the hard left. Even pro-European ‘centrists’, now in prominent ministerial positions, describe themselves as ‘Marxist’.” As there will be a UK election within two months, will any of those labels be relevant to British politics? Andrew Sparrow, the Guardian’s political blogger, and Nick Watt, chief political correspondent, are wary of labels. Sparrow said: “I find the whole leftwing/rightwing label issues tricky. Quite often on the left the term rightwing is just used to mean ‘bad’. There’s a political science definition to do with support for state spending, but when you use left/right to talk about the libertarian/authoritarian axis, it becomes a bit meaningless. A purist might say right equals libertarian, but that makes Liberty a rightwing organisation. In the UK if you stood up at a party conference and called for rail renationalisation, you would be labelled a leftwinger. But polls show this is what many people want. “The Greens, I suppose, are far-left, if you look at their economic policies. But it is not a label many people apply to them. Radical is even more problematic, because it is widely over-used and can apply to anyone from Iain Duncan Smith to Trotsky. In an ideal world, we would abandon all these labels and come up with more original, informative ones. But we write quickly, and we have to summarise stuff succinctly. Sometimes these phrases are the best or clearest available.” Watt said: “The labels leftwing and rightwing should be used with care because parties do not necessarily fit into easy categories. It is nevertheless fair to talk about rightwing and leftwing to give an idea of where a party stands on the political spectrum. At its most basic level I would use leftwing to describe a party that believes the state can play a benign, though not necessarily a dominant, role in the governance of society. I would use rightwing to describe a party that is wary of state intervention and believes in lower taxes as a way of stimulating economic growth and giving people greater freedom.“I think it would be fair to describe the two main GB parties as centre left (Labour) and centre right (Conservative) if one is making global comparisons. I add the “centre” qualification because the Tories are pretty left wing in US terms in light of their support for the NHS while the Labour party is pretty right wing in European terms because of its support for business - at least under Blair and Brown - and its belief in relatively low income tax levels.”” I think it is notable that once journalists feel the public has got to know a party the labels are largely dispensed with: even the Greens and Ukip are rarely prefaced with an adjective or an adjectival phrase these days. I can see the usefulness of labels – but the fewer the better. |