Mark Latham's sad departure and current statements that are making a fool of himself and making his party look lost show that Latham believes that the ALP has a choice between ideas and populism. But in truth the problem is that Latham was simply not up to the task. The ALP has a set of ideas that it can, and still does, adhere to that can be popular and successful. It doesn't need to switch ideas, just tactics.

Mark Latham's dramatic exit and current sniping are making the ALP look like a party that has the choice of either being pragmatic and appealing to the Australian public or having ideas and only appealing to smaller groups of that public.

This is a false dichotomy. The ALP can choose ideas and populism. The ALP doesn't have to look far back in it's history to find them. The Hawke/Keating government was a very good Australian government. It created and managed to sell government that was a fusion of market economics and socialism ( as the Germans refer to it 'Markt-Socialismus' ) or 'The Third Way'. Latham appeared to provide such a solution. However, he lacked the political skills to deliver it.

The 'Third Way' is attacked by the Left as being unprincipled as it embraces the market and by the Right as being a incoherent system that is just a way for Socialists to claim that their ideas and Keynesianism have failed. Both criticisms have some validity and show the problems with the system. However, both sides are so strongly critical of the third way partly because they fear the real successes that it has had.

In Australia, the most successful quasi Socialist government the country ever had embraced both the market and interference by government. The Hawke government embraced the market by undertaking an important reform that the preceeding Fraser government had been unable to do, namely it floated the dollar. It embraced the governments role in the economy by creating the centralised Industrial Relations agreement that led to a long, stable strike free and efficient work place. It realised that Australia had a balance of payments problem and undertook reforms to improve it.

In the US under Clinton the Democrats moved to the centre and Clinton presided over a very successful economy where America changed from a country that feared being taken over by the Japanese to one that was the envy of the world. He raised taxes slightly allowing the government to balance the budget and critically allowed US technology companies to create the commercial internet without too much regulation, despite the early recognition by Al Gore of how important the  the Internet would become.

In the UK Tony Blair presided over an economic recovery after the constant shocks and short sighted reforms of the Thatcher and Major governments. Blair again was admired around the world, until he made the decision to support Bush in the invasion of Iraq.

All these leaders are strongly disliked by the mainstream right because they have succeeded so well. They have shown that the centre left can provide very good, principled leadership.

If this system is so successful then why are two of the above governments now out of power and why did Mark Latham fail to get into power in the last election. The reasons for this is because selling the ideas of the Third Way is difficult. They do not offer a simplistic answer like dogmatic idealogies like neo-classical economics, fascism or communism.

The third way doesn't provide a recipe. Mark Latham had a tendency to say that 'this is the third way solution' as if he were invoking a magic wand. When he had time to think about things carefully he could provide good interesting. But when he became leader he lost the time to think things through and instead got caught up in political games and lost sight of process in the formulation of policy and moved sharply to the Left, this is outlined in an Age Opinion piece
The tragedy of Mark Latham, former thinker . In another Age article it states:

The book also reveals that Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, thought he had talked Mr Latham out of setting a deadline for an Australian troop withdrawal from Iraq - a week before the leader's politically disastrous "troops out by Christmas" pledge.

Latham appeared to believe that having ideas made him some sort of messiah that everyone should bow down to and that by invoking 'The Third Way' he could persude the populace that he was likely to be a good Prime Minister.

But Latham's failure should be an excuse for the ALP to abandon the Third Way. The Third way provides a framework for the process of policy creation to happen that recognises that for some things the market provides the best solution while for others the government can provide a better solution. In short they say that what is needed is understanding, wisdom and a bit of luck. But politicians are the great simplifiers and must provide soundbites that encapsulate their philosophies. If you can't blame 'big business', 'the goverernment' or 'the unions' for every problem slogans are more difficult to come up with.  

For the Liberal Party to be successful it too has to embrace and idealogy that is a combination of socialism and the market. And this is what, unfortunately for the ALP, the Liberal Party has successfully done. The Liberal Party had it's fling with a strongly neo-classical ideaology under Dr John Hewson, and it lost an unlosable election. Following that the Liberal Party switched leaders rapidly until John Howard came in and won the election with a lack of a strong platform. In his first term he was wise enough to do little and restrain those in his government like Peter Reith whose radicalism was not popular with the electorate. Only once when he had shown the electorate the Liberals could govern well did he bring in the reforms he wanted.

The Labour Party needs to learn from this, and not by just having a leader that is from the last government that they had. They need to be able to show the Australian Community that a Federal Labour government would be able to govern well. Then they can bring in the reforms that they think are needed. They must favour process over radicalism. Few people will hire someone who they think merely has good ideas. An election has similarities to a job interview - a clever, outspoken person who has great ideas but looks like they will not get on with others may impress in a first round interview but if there are other strong candidates will be unlikely to be hired.

As well providing a good candidate and facing strong opposition the other problem the ALP has is the strength of the Australian economy. While this is largely not due to Liberal Party as the economy, when run by a reasonably competent government, responds more to international events and technology than government policy, people do credit economies to governments. But good things don't last forever, and in the next 5 years Australia will almost certainly have a recession. The important thing for the ALP is that when this happens they should put blame on the shoulders of the government and provide a leader and a platform that the people of Australia will have enough faith in to elect. Pragmatic politicians and the Third Way are the best way to do this.