The present day consensus on the need to adjust the welfare state to the new economic and cultural context in fact masks contrasting strategies. With the analysis of four political essays by Antony Giddens, this text makes it possible to understand more clearly the specific nature of the British « Third solution ». Against neo-liberals, A. Giddens declares the need for a new social partner, for an inclusive society which would avoid the voluntary desertion of the rich as well as the exclusion forced on the poor. However, the compatibility between this project and an analysis of the « old welfare state », using most of the neo-liberal’s analysis tools, would appear problematic.