Over To You, Mr Brown
Anthony Giddens
Polity, 188pp, £9.99
Anthony Giddens was a sociologist of international standing before becoming the public intellectual guru of the Clinton-Blair third way. Unafraid to bridge the intellectual-political divide, his policy work drew scorn from erstwhile sociology colleagues but plaudits from progressive politicians. His public profile grew and he became the undisputed theoretician of the Blair era.
Can he reinvent himself as a guiding force for a post-Blair New Labour? In Over to You, Mr Brown, he has produced another restless tour de horizon, taking in most of the main axes of contemporary political debate. His scope is therefore impressive, ranging from foreign policy to welfare reform and beyond. But it suffers a lack of analytical depth as a consequence, and readers looking for substantive policy directions for a Brown government will find relatively little new meat here.
Giddens is at his strongest defending a revalorised European project and the merits of multiculturalism – which he rightly argues is best understood to assist integration, rather than the reverse. He also brings his extensive fund of global knowledge to bear on debates about the future of the welfare state and identity politics. But the book is less certain on where to go next in education, health and criminal justice policy. Giddens’ work has always been an antidote to leftist cynicism and apolitical intellectualism. But in this book he expounds on his ideas, rather than expanding on them.