By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

Just when you thought it was as dead as the famous parrot, it has raised its head towards the light.

This time, though, it's not the Tory party we're talking about, but the third way.

The prime minister is planning for a major summer conference in which he will seek to bring together all "progressive" leaders in Europe to renew their faith.

Mandelson hosts seminar

The Third Way, along with The Project, was the driving force behind the 1997 Labour campaign.

It was the closest thing Tony Blair and his chief political architect Peter Mandelson - who is chairing a seminar on the issue - had to an ideology.

First they would unite Britain, then Europe and finally, presumably, the world behind this fresh, radical approach to politics.

Bin bag

In a post cold war, post-ideology world, out would go all the old thinking and divisions over left and right, socialism and capitalism, in favour of a sort of middle-of-the-road, pick-and-mix pragmatism.

The Liberal Democrats would be on board and the Tories would be consigned to the bin bag of history for ever and a day.

Tony Blair would forge the bridge between Europe and the US under the third way banner. Soon, the whole world would be singing "Things Can Only Get Better."

And in those early days it looked like it might just happen.

Bill Clinton was in the White House, Peter Mandelson had not yet moved house into the political darklands and Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown was virtually a cabinet minister.

All Labour's old left-wing baggage - what was left of it - was abandoned.

And Europe appeared to be under the same spell with the majority of its leaders worshipping at Tony Blair's third way altar.

Tory way

But there have been precious few squawks from this particular parrot since the last election - or even a year or two before.

There has been a growing suspicion that, with disillusion over New Labour growing, it was the policy that dared not speak its name.

Doing it his way

Labour critics claim that the third way has, in fact, simply turned into the old Tory way.

And, as current events over Iraq have dramatically highlighted, it has failed to unite European leaders.

The critics also point to the fact that bizarrely, in their view, Tony Blair is even closer to George Bush than he was to Bill Clinton.

And there's no third way there - just the president's way.

Supporters, however, claim the idea has been the victim of its own success, at least in Britain.

All opposition, they claim , has been roundly defeated and, despite current difficulties, Europe is still broadly on board.

The third way, they claim, is now the only way.