IN THE ANGLOSPHERE, THE MOST THIRD WAY WINS:

Chamberlain is little celebrated today. But he was the most brilliant, inventive, and unpredictable politician in late Victorian England, and his brilliance seems to be understood by May's adviser Nick Timothy. Originally a successful businessman, Chamberlain became Liberal mayor of Birmingham while still young, and pioneered large-scale improvements in education, housing, and social services. He entered Parliament with an established reputation as a radical but effective social reformer; Queen Victoria thought him dangerous; Lord Salisbury described him as a 'Sicilian bandit'.

From his position as leader of the radical Liberal caucus, he campaigned for major social reforms within the party from 1884 onwards, then, crossing the floor to the Tories, he sought to transform the ramshackle British empire into an efficient economic federation that would sustain Britain's great power status indefinitely -- and he might have succeeded if he had not been cut down by a stroke. He was ambitious in everything he did, being later described by Winston Churchill as a 'man who made the weather'.

May's speech had too many echoes of Radical Joe to be a coincidence. Chamberlain presented himself as a reliable friend of the working class in politics, an affection that was reciprocated. Chamberlain was known as 'Our Joe' to the workers, and he never neglected his links with them. He pushed the Salisbury Tories into a series of moderate social reforms even before crossing the floor, and one of his motives for tariff reform was to finance a larger welfare state.

May was no less clear in her declarations. The third of her principles of government was 'a country that works not for the privileged few but for every one of us'. This was followed by a grim account of the difficulties facing a working class family in today's economy (under George Osborne) that climaxed with: '...under my leadership, the Conservative party will put itself -- completely, absolutely, unequivocally -- at the service of ordinary working people'.

Chamberlain wasn't averse to a strong dose of class war. In 1885 he made what  became known as the 'ransom speech', which assumed that the new democratic electorate would demand social reform. How would that be financed? He argued that it must come from the rich -- and continued ominously: 'But then, I ask, what ransom will property pay for the security which it enjoys?' 

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