'Does size matter?'

It's in the nature of politics to generate friends and enemies, by drawing borders and declaring hostilities. Of all the many criss-crossed trench-lines traversing our contemporary political battlescape, none is more enduring or more deeply-dug than the one than defines Right and Left according to calculations of the size and ambition of government. Where government absorbs a higher percentage of gross domestic product, and declares for itself a more ambitious roll-call of duties, it is usually presumed the Left is in the ascendant, and the Right's front-line is in danger of being breached. Conversely, where the public sector shrinks, and government proposes a narrower brief, the Right is evidently leading the assault. For many commentators the global financial crisis proves the point.