> in the rest of the world is rather to the right of centre

I find "rest of the world" hard to justify. The Indian right-wing are Hindu hardliners, but economically not all that different from the "center-left" INC, both of which, are IMO, way more left-wing than the US Democratic party when it comes to economics. Socially, all parties here pander to their regional (as opposed to national) voterbases. The Pakistani right-wing also seems to oppose economic liberalism (i.e. capitalism). Looking beyond this region, each country seems to have its own "left-right" divide, while not sharing much in the ideology of another country's "left-right" divide.