[oldcynic]

> the modern conservative party is also more central than in previous times though

I have to go back to the inter-war years to find them to the right of now on anything substantive. Disraeli's One-Nation Conservatism, the tenets of which still existed and were still somewhat respected under Heath, is resolutely dead, killed with malice by Thatcher's neo-liberal "there is no such thing as society, only the individual". Theresa May briefly using one-nation as a soundbite doesn't mean it actually exists any more.

Both Cameron and Blair were making policy changes and privatisations that Thatcher ruled out as too radical or unthinkable. It was Brown who removed the final remnants of banking control. Both governments were firmly to the right of the Thatcher years. Both would be unrecognisable to the Wilson Labour party. The formerly mainstream One-Nation Tories were redefined as the "wets" in the Thatcher years and it was the radical right of the party who came to the fore.

Similar can be seen on the other side of the Atlantic.

> In my eyes, the overton window has shifted leftward so drastically

I cannot think of a single solitary policy that has moved leftward since 1979 and the Thatcher era without requiring a fundamental redefinition of left/right as political terms. "New Labour" was the redefinition of the Labour party as a Tory-lite party. Thatcher notably said in her later years her biggest achievement was New Labour.

On work, unions, welfare, state ownership, tax and redistribution of wealth, even austerity the current Tories are markedly to the right of any previous party since the war. Crucially so are the current and previous (New) Labour party. You could go back further, but prior to the inception of the Labour party it's going to become an increasingly meaningless discussion.

The Labour party of today is no longer a party of the left in the generally accepted European sense but firmly of the centre in the same space as the LibDems. Under Blair (new) Labour were firmly of the neo-liberal right.

The only reason the Conservative party has moved more slowly on gender, race, and LGBT issues, and other orthogonal non left/right issues, is it has always been the party of the older generation hoping for the country to be run as it used to be run. Such is the nature of conservatism (small C), even whilst Thatcher was implementing radical neo-liberal reforms. Those issues are steadily changing on both sides of the political spectrum, and mostly always have with each generation.

[beaconstudios]

I think we're talking past each other here - I'm not referring to political parties and policy-making, but to the cultural zeitgeist. That's what the overton window is to my understanding - the range of acceptable political thought and discourse. Given that as I mentioned, progressives have been actively seeking in recent years to redefine classical liberal attitudes as bigotry-lite, I'd say that's a shift leftward. The lay of the land in my generation (millennial) seems to be skewed progressive/reactionary with a whole bunch of quiet people in the middle.

The UK seems to be particularly stick-in-the-mud in terms of policy, we haven't even considered relaxing penalties on cannabis possession even though the US, being allegedly more socially conservative, has legalised completely in multiple states. I would personally consider Thatcher's reign to be more right wing, at least fiscally, cutting mining subsidies that acted as a form of state welfare to a large number of working class British citizens, and incentivising people to buy their social housing. I agree with you about New Labour though, though Corbyn is bringing back the socialist aspect of the Labour party with the help of said millennial progressives.

[oldcynic]

> I think we're talking past each other here

Distinctly possible!

> not referring to political parties and policy-making, but to the cultural zeitgeist ... the range of acceptable political thought and discourse

Hmm. I have never heard it used separate of policy. My understanding is it's the range of policies the public will accept and elect. If a proposed policy is outside the window then it'll be seen as extreme, or you'll not get re-elected. What usually follows are soundbites and helpful campaigns of politicians on message trying to shift public opinion first to render that policy acceptable. Sometimes this works (brexit, though I don't think they wanted to be quite that successful), often it doesn't. Put another way it's a way of gauging if "we'll get away with this".

So whilst said millennial progressives may be pulling back a bit from the accepted norm of neo-liberalism with free market as answer to everything, the individual being what matters (with as little government as possible), the pendulum after 40 years swinging right remains extremely far over on the right. If it's general political discussion outside of any reference to policy then the waters get far muddier with some aspects distinctly more left than others, though often not classic political areas of interest. It probably gets harder to judge the general view too.

Other than on the fringes there's little real discussion of adequate social housing, more public services, government providing safety net, society and community, failure of privatisations (except rail thanks to Corbyn) or even alternatives to austerity when after a decade it clearly isn't working. Mind that was likely a policy to hasten the reduction of government.

UK policy has always been rather reluctant compared to Europe on social matters preferring to stigmatise and pretend it isn't happening. For most social policies, cannabis included, the changes seem inevitable as the younger generation of both right and left are far more accepting. Even my generation seems often more relaxed than policy. I'm actually surprised it hasn't been legalised already - it's more common than tobacco now, and I've thought it inevitable for ages. My generation can't all have reached 40 and forgotten how they spent their youth!

[beaconstudios]

certainly policy-wise there's been a kind of centre-right monopoly since the dawn of New Labour - the socialist left was pretty much dead until Corbyn's takeover. There's certainly a few things we could do with from a stronger left vision - primarily returning the NHS to its former glory, instead of leaving it to wither on the vine like successive PMs have been doing.

Irritatingly enough, in my experience millennial progressives don't seem to care about actual valuable socialist policies but more about shutting down open debate with misguided accusations of various forms of bigotry. Policy-wise the best I've seen is calls to elect whoever the most left-signalling person is regardless of their policies or character. I'm sure that's not the majority of left-leaning 20-30 somethings but it's certainly a majority (perhaps 70%) of those I've interacted with. Not that it's a problem that's isolated on the left - the right has been getting more conspiratorial and detached from reality too. It doesn't give me a lot of hope when debate moves from open discussion of policy to shouting slurs across the aisle. It just serves to harm meaningful movement on policies that actually might make a difference in people's lives. Even Brexit rapidly devolved into "the people who hate Europe/immigrants vs the people who are afraid of change/are naive". I think until the gap is bridged, policies will continue to change (or not) without my generation taking any notice whatsoever.

[oldcynic]

Fully agree - the media is full of the crisis of loneliness, rising suicide, depression, so of course mental health budgets are cut to the quick and wait lists rising again. Even the much needed building programme in the Blair years will have us paying off the public private partnership for another 15 or 20 years. Corbyn seems to have lost the momentum since the election so I'm not sure how that will play out in the next one.

Interesting, I'd always just assumed I was doing them a disservice and not noticing the real issues when seeing stories of no-platforming or focus on redefining or limiting some online language. I think it's far too easy to get detached from reality with the degree the networks keep everyone in their own little bubbles. Brexit was the worst of UK politics in so many respects, especially the amount of racism that came up, not since I was in school can I remember that much open racism. I really thought we had done better on race. I'm not especially optimistic either when we have seemed overdue for a political change for perhaps a decade now yet all sides seem happy to carry on trading insults and lies.