I don't know what makes you think I want to hear particular answers, Joe. If, by now, you haven't spotted that I relish a good controversy, you've clearly mistaken me for someone else. As for labelling people, I've tried to be at pains to avoid that, and, instead, to try to sharpen up how we use labels like left and right. I agree that we should try to take issues separately, which, in my clumsy way, is what I was trying to tell Bill.

Kevin, I am definitely not trying to correlate ethics with left and right. In fact, I am trying to tease out the fault line between ethics and place on the political spectrum.. Like everyone else on the left, though, I'm clearly going to be suspicious of right-wing people who claim to be compassionate, etc., as one of the values I always associate with the right is self-interest. I freely admit that I can't help that. My mum and dad were (actually, still are, as they're both alive and kicking) lefties. Being a leftie for me is an accident of birth (note, believers, how I admit to that), though I'd like to think I'd have gone that way anyway.

I think that an outcome of this thread, if I'm honest, is that the terms left and right have become almost too controversial to be of much use any more. I say almost because I think there are still some useful applications of the terms. For example, it is entirely useful to say that Keith, Teribus and pete are very right wing. On the other hand, it is entirely undiplomatic and reckless of outcome to say so. Which is why I'm not saying it.