How the compass is calculated

Each question carries weights on up to four independent axes:

• Economy: state ownership and redistribution vs free markets.
• Authority: civil liberties and decentralisation vs a strong central state.
• Tradition: social reform and secularism vs cultural and religious continuity.
• Nation: federal and globalist vs nationalist and centralising.

Your answers are summed per axis and normalised to a −1 to +1 scale, then matched to one of the result archetypes.

Each politician is scored on the same four axes. Similarity is the Euclidean distance between your axis scores and theirs, mapped to a percentage; closer positions score higher. Because every axis runs from −1 to +1, the maximum possible distance is fixed, so the percentage is consistent and comparable.

similarity% = round( (1 − distance / 4) × 100 ), where distance is computed across econ, auth, trad, and natl.

This compares policy positions only, not leadership style, personality, popularity, or overall legacy. It is meant to show which leaders your views overlap with on issues, and where you diverge, not to claim you "are" any politician.

Scores are drawn from the documented policy record: major legislation, budget and policy decisions, manifestos, and landmark judgments; and each profile lists the sources behind its positions. Scores are reviewed editorially and are open to correction; they are interpretations of a record, not precise measurements.

Four axes cannot capture every nuance of a political position, and reducing a leader's decades-long record to four numbers necessarily simplifies. We publish the axis scores and sources precisely so the reasoning can be challenged. If you think a score is wrong, the evidence, not the label, is what we want to argue about.