Excuse me, but what is the alternative to Blairism?

'Some of those who are most bored with Blair have been conjuring phantasms from Labour's deep'

It's been a silly month in politics. I think I have heard and read more nonsense in the last three weeks than in the previous five years. And, as Gwendolen says to Cecily in Act II of The Importance of Being Earnest, "On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure."

Let us begin with the Conservative revival. This consists of two polls showing that the Government only enjoys a 7-9 per cent lead over the Tories – and a speech at Harrogate from Iain Duncan Smith, lauded by one respected Conservative commentator as, "the most important by any Conservative leader since Margaret Thatcher ceased to lead the party 12 years ago". Of course, the author could have been making a back-handed, ironic point at the expense of John Major or William Hague.

But he wasn't. In the few paragraphs remaining to him after his denunciation of Blair, our commentator managed a sentence or two about how Duncan Smith's speech represented a radical commitment to decentralisation, to "returning power to the people". I returned to the text to see what I'd missed. Was there a commitment to that most free-market of all devolutions, the devolution of their decisions over their own money back to taxpayers? No.

So did IDS want to do any of the following: get rid of the national curriculum, disband Ofsted, abolish school league tables, do away with all curbs on local councils' abilities to raise their own finances? Did he argue that post-code surgery is an inevitable consequence of decentralisation? Promise to hand the Metropolitan Police over to the London mayor? Commit the Conservatives to enhancing the powers of the Welsh Assembly as against Westminster? No.

Five years in opposition, and the leader stands up and announces nothing, and it's the most important speech since Mrs T made speeches that actually mattered. One day, perhaps, we may look back on this loud passage of air as a seminal moment, had we but known it. But right now, there is absolutely no reason to do so.

A few days earlier Charles Kennedy made a joke. "What's their new policy?" he asked of the Tories, answering, "IDS – I daren't say." Blair got it too. "We're all learning the meaning of Labour's elusive third way," joshed Mr Kennedy, "It means: third-class railways, third-class hospitals, third-class policing, third-class schools." So unlike his own party, which at local level, was "leading the way" on "energy conservation, integrated transport (and) recycling." And which was also unique in its clear, cast-iron alternative commitment to fund public services out of general taxation. Er, "principally".

As ears cocked and noses twitched, Mr Kennedy sought to reassure the suspicious. "We're not abandoning our principles," he told them, "We're not abandoning our instincts. But we do need to think hard about new ways of giving people the public services they deserve. Our party is at its best when it's a ferment of ideas." Five years in opposition and the Liberal Democrats have a "ferment". Which is why – as of now – they have no alternative strategies either, except that they rather like the idea of earmarked taxes. Fine as far as it goes, which is not very far.

But at least, I hear you mutter, it's better than all those Blairite third-way neither-this-nor-that vacuities, such as: "This isn't the old-fashioned socialist idea of a benevolent central government providing uniform lives for all. And of course it's not about a free-for-all either."

Afraid not. That was one of Mr Kennedy's third-way vacuities. My pleasure, Cecily.

Knowing all this, some of those who are most bored or disgruntled with Blair have spent their time conjuring phantasms from Labour's own deep, their brows furrowed, their fingers in constant, desperate motion. Just yesterday we learned – this time from a left-wing commentator – that we were seeing a "sea-change" in Labour. The third-way and Blair were on the way out, and new (or, rather, old) forces were edging their way in. "The outlines," he perceived, "of a possible alternative Labour agenda are becoming clearer."

Unfortunately that was it. These clearer outlines were so clear to the writer that he thought it unnecessary to sketch any of them out for his readers. There was a lot about Iraq and Berlusconi, of course, but not a word about what a different Labour Party with a different leader might actually do.

This week Ian Davidson MP spoke about re-forming the old Tribune group of Labour MPs. But what would it stand for? Capitalism or not capitalism? Jospinism? Schröderism? A return to the Swedish model (sans charging for visits to the doctor, of course)? The abolition of the WTO? Much higher taxes? He was more modest. He simply wanted the PM to take more notice of back-benchers and the party. The same sort of thing as media-favourite Peter Kilfoyle keeps saying – though I have never once heard him tell us what it is he, Peter Kilfoyle, wants, and therefore what the purpose to anyone listening to him might actually be.

Try this. It's Kilfoyle on Sunday on Gordon Brown . "In the eyes of many... [Brown] has been the architect of the successes of this Labour administration. His enemies charge him with the frustrations engendered by his two-year spending freeze... Which view will hold, only time will tell." Time may, but Mr Kilfoyle won't.

He is wise. In these pages a few weeks ago, the Labour NEC member and editor of Tribune, Mark Seddon, was less circumspect. "All roads lead to Gordon Brown, said Seddon. Adding, with regard to one of the great current controversies, the one which links Blair to the hated Berlusconi, "The unions must know that if anyone is able to square the circle between full employment and maintaining rights at work, it is the Chancellor."

We found out yesterday what lay at the end of those roads. The Seddonite fiction credits Mr Brown with suffering from some prolonged aberration, brought on by over-exposure to the Sedgefield necromancer. Kill Tony off, and the ur-Brown, in all his Scottish socialist magnificence, will reassert itself.

Here's Brown on the Third Way. "I say it is absolutely right to combine an agenda for encouraging and rewarding enterprise with an agenda for fairness..." Here he is on business and employment: "The Labour Party is more pro-business, pro-wealth creation, pro-competition than ever before." And here he is on the European versus the US model: "We are looking to the productivity advances that were achieved in America after the mid-1990s." Oh, and Mark, he also wants "value for money" in the public services, which is not quite the same as your implied idea of just handing billions over and telling everyone to spend it how they like.

I'm not saying that history is over, and there's nothing the Government should do differently. I could handle, for instance, serious moves to cut arms sales. And I'm not saying that there cannot be an alternative. But I am saying that no one has come up with it yet. Sugar, Gwendolen?

David.Aaronovitch@btinternet.com