US Edition I AM indebted to the latest issue of Private Eye for the information that there is a note by my name in a file of potential interviewees at the BBC, which says simply: "very Right-wing". I have mixed feelings about this. I am flattered that the BBC thinks it worth keeping my name on file. A little surprised, too, since I have never been interviewed on the radio or television, refusing all invitations on the grounds that I am tongue-tied and camera-shy, and would be sure to make a fool of myself.
But I am also slightly annoyed by that description - . I suppose that it is better than being described - like Peter Kellner, of the Evening Standard, in the same BBC file - as just plain "dull". But I mean to say! What a withering way to sum up the many complicated opinions, not all of them rational or coherent, that go into a chap's political make-up.
It is not even true, either. If I had to stick a label on myself, I would say that I am a liberal Tory, one of the millions who are against unnecessary state interference in economics or the conduct of individuals and institutions. But I suppose that somebody at the BBC must have read something that I have written - perhaps about abortion (I am strongly against it) or homosexuality (pro-tolerance, anti-lowering the age of consent, anti-"gay marriage") - and decided that this made me "very Right-wing".
Surely, I thought, there must be a fairer way for the BBC to decide where its potential interviewees stand in the political spectrum? And now I discover that there is. A friend has just introduced me to a wonderful new website, www.politicalcompass.org. I heartily commend it to all readers who have access to the internet and five minutes to spare for a bit of frivolity.
The website belongs to a group called One World Action, whose president is Glenys Kinnock. But don't let that put you off. (I must say that I have always much preferred the former Labour leader to his wife, because at least Neil has the excuse of being extremely thick.)
Click on "take the test" and you will be invited to answer six pages of questions, at the end of which you will be told precisely where you stand politically in relation to the likes of Hitler, Ann Widdecombe, Stalin and the present party leaders. Your place in the political universe will appear as a dot on a graph, divided by a cross in the middle into four quarters: authoritarian Right, libertarian Right, libertarian Left and authoritarian Left.
According to Mrs Kinnock's outfit, Tony Blair and Jack Straw are both well to the Right of Hitler, and both are authoritarian, although less so than the Fuhrer. William Hague and Miss Widdecombe are both to the Right of Mr Blair and Mr Straw, and more authoritarian (although less so than Hitler).
I ought to point out that none of these politicians has actually taken the test. Mrs Kinnock's website says: "Instead of hoping for an honest personal response, we've estimated their positions, based on their statements and actions during the present government's term of office."
This must explain why Mr Hague comes out as more authoritarian than Mr Straw - an extraordinary finding, as anybody who knows them both will testify. I can guarantee that, if only they had been allowed to take the test, Mr Hague would have emerged as much more libertarian than the Home Secretary. He is even more libertarian than I am, for heaven's sake.
A lot of the questions in the test are very irritatingly phrased and impossible to answer properly, with only these four options available: "strongly agree", "agree", "disagree" and "strongly disagree".
What are we to say to this, for example: "The rich, who often contribute much to society, are too highly taxed and too little appreciated"? A very tricky one for people such as me, who think that the rich (although who do we mean by that?) are too highly taxed, but perfectly adequately appreciated. And what about: "Homosexuality is a perversion that should be punished"? Where does that leave those of us who think that it is a perversion that ought not to be punished?
But it is worth playing along with Mrs Kinnock's quiz, if only to bring home to us what a complicated business politics is, and how silly it is to try to condense anybody's political views into a description of two or three words.
We Tories are particularly hard to label in this way, since Toryism is more an attitude of heart and mind than a set of political or economic beliefs. It is quite possible to be a Tory and yet to believe in tax rates of 80 per cent for the rich, just as it is possible to be a Tory and to want to abolish income tax altogether. (I am not so sure that you can be a proper Tory if you want to abolish the pound, because Toryism and feelings of nationhood are closely linked. But I am open to persuasion.)
To me, Toryism means taking people as they are - with all their ambitions, differences, foibles and imperfections - and trying to make life better for them. Other creeds start by deciding how people should be in a perfect society, and then try to force everyone to conform to that ideal.
Mr Blair's ideal seems to be that everyone should think like him. If you disagree with him - about asylum seekers, the euro, releasing terrorists in Northern Ireland or anything else - then you are one of the "forces of conservatism", complicit in racist murder and beyond the pale of civilisation.
Whatever happens in the election tomorrow, I am sure that Toryism will survive, because it is so deep-seated in so many breasts. In Mrs Kinnock's test, by the way, I came out on the libertarian Right - almost exactly in the same place on the graph as Charles Kennedy (although, in fact, he is miles to the Left of me). But I shall be voting Tory tomorrow. As far as the BBC is concerned, I suppose, that is enough to justify the description: "very Right-wing".