The Economist has been free-market oriented for 100+ years and conceives of itself as classically liberal, so I don't think there's any recent turn to the right. The main difference with some other free-market-oriented media (like some on the American right) is that they more fully adopt the European liberal tradition, including quite a bit of social liberalism, and acceptance of things like social safety nets, the need for good public schooling, openness to immigration, etc. That can sometimes make them seem progressive in an American context, but only in specific senses.
I don't agree that "Free Market Oriented" is the same as "Right Wing". One is economic ideology, the other is a social position. They interplay certainly, but how should I put it, some of Economists editorials recently do seem disharmonious with overall enlightened character of their commentary.
Well my own personal position is that if you are "on the right" you're not enlightened, but that's just based on my own experiences of people who claim to be (or often deny they are - but clearly are) on the right.
Free Markets is different but it's one of those concepts that means different things to different people and most "enlightened" people can agree that some of those things are great, and some of those things are not so great.
Yes. It's like how Jeremy Clarkson is pretty extreme right wing by British standards, but still makes jokes mocking the American health care system or how racist middle England is.
Different cultures can be a little weird to fit into eachother's concepts of a partisan political system.
