If Doctor Who were a politician...

…he’d be a Libertarian. No, really, he would.

Think about it: he has an innate scepticism of authority. When he becomes involved in a situation, he tends to side with the little man (or woman). He left his home world to travel around the universe in a battered time and space vessel because they were too stuffy and bureaucratic. He values freedom of thought and freedom of action far above the relative security but complete lack of action offered by controlling states.

And many of his adventures see him fighting and other-throwing dictatorial and oppressive powers. Look at some of his major enemies. The Daleks are creatures of hate, who wish to wipe out other species. The Cybermen want to remove free will and emotions, to control everyone and have them all thinking exactly the same thing. And the Master is a megalomaniac who wants nothing less than the whole universe under his control. The Doctor fights all these enemies – and many more – who want to subjugate others and remove their free will. He doesn’t do it to win power for himself; in fact, when offered power, he turns it down. Hell, one adventure actually sees the Doctor fighting a high-tax regime. You can’t really get more Libertarian than that.

Part of not seeking power for himself means that the Doctor seldom hangs around after bringing people freedom. Again, this is very Libertarian. He removes the dictator, gives power back to the man/woman in the street, then leaves them to take responsibility for their own actions. The end of the story Vengeance on Varos makes this very clear – having freed the people from a dictatorial regime built around public torture and execution, two of the citizens are left wondering what to do next. The Doctor has done his job and given them the freedom to choose what to do next; he doesn’t hang around to tell them what they should be doing.

It is true that the Doctor, in his third incarnation, did work for the government. Yet even when doing so, he was blatantly disrespectful to authority and had no compunction about siding with aliens and other enemies of humanity if he saw them as having the right point of view. He never became a slave of the state, and he always remained an outspoken critic of humanity as a whole if he saw it as appropriate.

Anti-authoritarian, anti-bureaucratic, anti-tax, pro-freedom, pro-responsibility and out-spoken: really, it is difficult to think of a more Libertarian character than the Doctor.