In an exclusive interview with ePolitix.com, the "third way" theorist and "Blairite guru" professor Anthony Giddens urges the government to do more for the environment and not to "exaggerate" the importance of marriage in family policy.

On the eve of The Hague conference on climate change and as a BSE panic grips France, Giddens argues that Labour is just beginning to get to grips with the environment and issues a clear warning on GM foods: "I think the government is only just beginning to get to grips with it"..."Some of us were arguing for a long while that New Labour should have embodied more fundamental ecological themes. It is both more interesting and more difficult than people imagine, because a lot of debates about ecology to my mind are actually debates about the management of scientific and technological innovation and you have to include BSE, GM crops as well as global warming in the whole panorama of these things"... "The fundamental mistake that was made about BSE was the declaration that beef was safe, and the Labour party almost made the same mistake when they seemed to imply we know there are no risks in GM foods. We just can't know that so you must have informed public debate in which politicians have a sophisticated outlook on these issues and I do think there is more work to be done to integrate all that within a coherent new Labour framework."

- On family policy, Giddens urges the government not to "exaggerate" the importance of marriage or to demonise single parents: "I'm not sure the government has a completely coherent policy on the family - they certainly need one. What that agenda should be is very plain to me. You need strong families and you need strong relationships.... You need strong families, but they have to look a bit different from the past and you have to recognise that this must include single parents. You need to provide a good environment for children in single parent families too, therefore it's a mistake to criticise them or to demonise them in some way that will rebound and it is up to the government to find a coherent position on that... I think relationships are the order of the day - therefore not too much difference between heterosexual and homosexual relationships in terms of what is demanded to have stability in people's emotional lives."