Strange bedfellows?

Via DPF: The Maxim Institute has a handy conscience vote comparison tool, which not only shows MPs positions on the most important votes of last term, but also allows you to compare their position with your own. DPF was surprised to discover that no-one in National (pre-election) shared his views, and that the people who voted his preferences were from Labour, the Greens, and ACT. I don't really think its that surprising. I've been going back through past conscience votes, and its interesting to see how many of National's supposed "liberals" (Ruth Richardson? Simon Upton?) voted against things like Homosexual Law Reform or lowering the drinking age to 18. In my lifetime at least, freedom's truest friends have been on the left, not the right.

Point-scoring aside, despite our differences on economic policy, there are clearly areas both right- and left-wing liberals agree on. It's a shame that we haven't been able to cooperate to advance in those areas more often. It's also a shame that liberals on the right haven't done more to show their interest in freedoms beyond the freedom of the rich not to pay taxes. I would dearly love to see a (fiscally) right-wing MP put their money where their mouth is on hate speech, and introduce a Private Member's Bill to repeal the existing law against blasphemous libel (effectively hate speech protection for the Christian religion). But sadly, I don't expect to see this happening any time soon.