The British two-party system depends on the existence of rigid parties; that is, parties in which there is effective discipline regarding parliamentary voting patterns.
The then prime minister, Winston Churchill, uttered a revealing phrase in defence of this architecture which echoed the British two-party system: "We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us".
Yet having rebelled more than any other Labour backbencher - at least 500 times since 1997 - at least Corbyn might break the stifling grip of the party system in parliament, so corrosive for British politics.
Nor did they prophesy the party system.
"I think the party system is stupid".
The parliamentary system means the party system.
Far from celebrating adversarial politics, the sponsor of the third way disparages the "tribalism" of British party politics and hints that he will end it by merging with the Liberal Democrats or reforming the winner-takes-all voting system.
The party system is in disarray.
The third party system lasted until 1896.
