You may have seen those online questionnaires which calculate where on the political spectrum you are – not the fun ones, where you can find out which eighteenth century faction you’d have been in (High Church Tory, obviously), but the ones that gather your responses to a series of dogmatic assertions, generally about American politics.   

You may not have seen – because I’m guessing the algorithm only pitches thus to single people – their latest adverts, which suggest that you should require potential partners to use this service before you meet. Why waste time on a coffee date with someone to whom you are not politically aligned?  The questionnaire then performs the same function as civism certificates during the French Revolution, where a surveillance committee would make sure that you were politically orthodox, and were not guilty of moderatism or expressing sympathy for those who had been cancelled, whether Louis C.K. or Louis XVI.   

Sandi Toksvig’s war on Wikipedia

Why Tom Cruise’s Digger flopped at the box office

The chutzpah of Ed Miliband

It never used to be like this. Of course, political extremism has always been a red flag – although only extremism on the right.  (Singing ‘The Red Flag’ is not a red flag.)  Women........

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