Not sure that any of what’s set out above stands in the way of it having been a perceptive article, back in 1979, about the discursive articulation by Thatcherism of new right economics and old Tory ‘family values etc’..

And who is this looking at Stuart Hall & Thatcherism in 1989? Why, it’s no other than Gordon Brown….

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v11/n03/gordon-brown/thatcherism

As for Stuart Hall, wasn’t he one of those propounding that “authoritarian populism” guff?

As was noted over ten years ago:

“Almost every fundamental of new Labour can be found in the pages of Marxism Today’s back issues. Rights and responsibilities, community and citizenship, love of modernisation, they were all there, dressed up rather unconvincingly as a ‘progressive’ take on Marxism”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,324997,00.html

It would be too much to describe MT as the father of New Labour and Blairism, but it could be easily described as an influential uncle and Hall had quite a say in this.

It’s no coincidence MT contributor Geoff Mulgan was Director of Policy at 10 Downing Street under Tony Blair, and that MT editor Martin Jacques, after the mag’s demise, openly expressed his admiration for Thatcher and revealed he thought the CPGB was unreformable in the ’80s, but stayed in because he needed its subsidy to continue publishing Marxism Today. In addition Nina Temple, a close ally of Jacques and the last General Secretary of the CPGB, now works as head of Development and Communications at the right wing, think-tank the Social Market Foundation.

Of the two Stuart Hall’s give me the TV & radio presenter (and fellow Man City fan) anyday of the week.

(BTW I’m not a communist, or even a Marxist but I was one for some years in the ’80s.)

I’m trying to work out what I’ll submit, any recommendations would be welcome. I hope you don’t intend to win too much, because my grandma’s alive and keeps the Readers’ Digest! I’ve a lot of leverage…