A reminder of the circularity of most politics

The political compass is, as we all know, circular, not a left right spectrum. Go too far out into the craziness of the so called "far right" and one ends up spouting the same nonsenses that the "far left" promulgate. One of us once had rather some fun comparing and contrasting the economic suggestions of Colin Hines ("progressive protectionism"), formerly economic adviser to Greenpeace, with the economic proposals of the BNP. The point being that there was a lot of comparing to do, both wanted an autarkic economy without much interaction with those beastly foreigners and trade, and not all that much to contrast.

This morning gives us another lovely example of this:

Swedish far-right go bananas with call for foreign food ban

Yes, of course, it's a ludicrous idea.

The Smålandsposten newspaper reported that the draft budget included the demand that “organically produced products are desirable but the most important thing is that food is locally produced, that is to say, Swedish”.

This is indeed bananas as it comes from the far right. When it comes from the left and far left it is called being a locavore. Something that local councils are already urged to write into their contracts, there's charities pushing the idea and no doubt there's a government grant or two pushing it too.

Go too far right and you end up spouting the same nonsense as the left. All of which is amusing of course but when Natalie Bennett says we should all eat local she gets on the radio and TV. Odd how the policy is sanctified by who spouts it really.