Tony Blair has warned Labour that its fierce resistance to austerity and welfare cuts risked reducing it to a party of protest.
In an apparent dig at Ed Miliband, the former prime minister cautioned that the political centre ground in Britain had not shifted to the Left in the wake of the credit crunch.
He highlighted the danger of returning to the dividing lines of the 1980s, when Labour championed the "status quo" and languished in opposition to Margaret Thatcher's Tories.
The intervention - Mr Blair's most significant on the domestic stage since leaving office nearly six years ago - came in an article for the New Statesman magazine.
He flatly rejected the argument that New Labour "created" the financial crisis, insisting the structural deficit had been below 1% in 2007-8.
But however the crisis occurred, he said, "no-one can get permission to govern unless they deal with its reality".
"The paradox of the financial crisis is that, despite being widely held to have been caused by under-regulated markets, it has not brought a decisive shift to the left," he wrote.
"But what might happen is that the left believes such a shift has occurred and behaves accordingly.
"The risk, which is highly visible here in Britain, is that the country returns to a familiar left/right battle.
"The familiarity is because such a contest dominated the 20th century. The risk is because in the 21st century such a contest debilitates rather than advances the nation.
"This is at present crystallising around debates over austerity, welfare, immigration and Europe.
"Suddenly, parts of the political landscape that had been cast in shadow for some years, at least under New Labour and the first years of coalition government, are illuminated in sharp relief.
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