The Third Way

We should reassess the Third Way but Twitter won’t let us. Every time we try, at every turn, at every daring attempt to finally reassess the Third Way, Twitter is there, peering in through our drawn curtains, piercing the self-imposed darkness of our secret convocation, muzzling us as we try to mouth the sacred truths of our prophets, Giddens, Blair and Brown.

Every time we try to suggest that New Labour’s legacy should be read within the context of a global turn towards a set of radical policy changes that have mostly been grouped under the rubric of ‘neoliberalism’, Twitter is there, telling us Blair is a war criminal, a warmonger, a criminal warmongering war criminal-mongering warmonger. They have erased Giddens from their algorithms. They have crossed Brown’s name out from their automated search functions. Try to find ‘Tony Blair’ on Twitter and the only result you’ll get is an image of Jeremy Corbyn laughing uproariously, set in an endless M.C. Escher style infinite regress. Such are the ways in which Twitter stop us reassessing the crucial legacy of Third Way politics for parties of the left since 2000.

It’s fine, of course, if you want to call Tony Blair a Warmonger or a War Criminal or a Warmongering Criminal Warmonger. Just don’t try to talk about the complex legacy of a shift in governmental techniques associated with figures from Antony Giddens to Bill Clinton. Don’t even attempt it. You won’t succeed. You’ll just be drawn into a long, pointless, soul-destroying thread which culminates in you being strongly encouraged to join another political party in a manner reminiscent of Hitler first being mentioned in an internet forum thread.

You have been warned.