Latest left-right spectrum polling
During the conference season YouGov repeated their occasional polling on how people perceive the parties and party leaders on the left right spectrum.
As I normally point out on this question, a simple left-right scale on a single axis would be rather a simplistic way of categorising parties, however, it serves a useful function in showing how close people perceive the parties to be to themselves, and how extreme or centrist people see the parties.
YouGov asked people to rate each party on a left-right scale, from "very left wing", through fairly left, slightly left of centre, centre, slightly right of centre and so on. They then give each answer a numerical value so each party can be given an average score from -100 (very left wing) to +100 (very right wing).
The Conservative party stands at +46, almost unchanged from the previous time the question was asked in January, but still significantly more right wing than when they were in opposition. At the beginning of Cameron's leadership the party were rated at +53, by 2007-2009 they were into +37. Since the election they've moved out again. While David Cameron is seen as very marginally more centrist than his party on +43, the difference is not significant compared to in 2006-2007 when he was seen as far more centrist than they Tory party as a whole.
Perceptions of Labour are moving slowly leftwards. Their lastest rating is -41, from -39 last time, -37 last July and -27 before the election. Notice that while perceptions of the Labour party are that it is much more left wing than under Blair and Brown, it is still seen as slightly more centrist than the Tories, though the difference is far less than it once was. If we look back at the figures from 2006 and 2007 Labour were seen as far more centrist than the Tories (-19 vs +50 in 2006, -23 to +53 in 2007). These days they are far more balanced.
There is not much difference in Ed Miliband's ratings: -42, compared to -45 in January. He is seen as pretty much as left wing as David Cameron is seen as right wing. However, this is again in stark contrast to his predecessors. Over the years Gordon Brown's ratings ranged from -20 to -27. Tony Blair was normally perceived as slighty right of centre, with ratings from +3 to +7.
Finally we come to the Liberal Democrats, were we see the only really interesting movement since January. As one might have expected, perceptions of Clegg and the Lib Dems jumped rightwards after their entry into government. Before the election people had put Clegg at -13 on the left-right scale, by January they were putting him slightly right of centre on +10. There was a similar shift for the Lib Dems: prior to the election they were rating as slightly left of centre on -17, in January they had moved to almost exactly in the centre on +1. Since then perceptions have moved slightly leftwards again - Clegg is seen as bang on centre, with a score of 0 on the left-right scale, the Lib Dems as a whole have moved less, but have an average rating of minus 4.
