So what party are you?

Thanks to Liberty Hall Grapevine's post "Would I make a good Tory...?", I've been directed to SelectSmart.com, which has a number of tests, amongst others, on politics around the world. The first, and most inevitable test, is for the major British political parties and my results rank them in the following order:

1. Conservatives
2. Labour
3. Green Party
4. Liberal Democrats
5. Plaid Cymru
6. Scottish National Party

So not too surprising there. More interesting are the tests for other countries. Many have bemoaned the chaotic state of politics in the Republic of Ireland, where ideology is almost totally lacking and parties are based around personalities, and it's very hard to say which party is the equivalent of anything. One of the few parties that doesn't have its roots in the Irish Civil War are the Progressive Democrats, who call themselves a "Liberal Political Party" and are the Republic's affiliates to the various international federations of liberal political parties, but whilst there's an economic policy that British commentators would label "Orange Book",

one of their most prominent TDs, the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, has acquired a reputation for being something of an authoritarian and is frequently portrayed as fascist by the Phoenix.

And no-one seems to be clear whether they're left, centre or right-wing! So what party does SelectSmart.com say I most agree with?

1. Progressive Democrats (An Páirtí Daonlathach)
2. Green Party (Comhaontas Glas)
3. Fine Gael (Family of the Irish)
4. Labour (Páirtí an Lucht Oibre)
5. Fianna Fáil (Soldiers of Destiny)
6. Sinn Féin ("we ourselves")

Well some of these are unsurprising. But the test falls back on asking for agreement or disagreement on the statement "Charles Haughey was a good Taoiseach", as though it needs to ask that in order to get a clear result vis a vis Fianna Fáil. I suspect that if I ever do find myself filling in a ballot paper for Dail Eireann I may end up combining a personality and tactical vote unless some of the above parties both offer good policies and don't raise the spectre of coalition government with disreputable parties, especially Sinn Féin.

There are many more tests there - I'd be particularly interested to see how well those readers from outside the UK match up to the parties they currently support.