stuart hall's writing on the political impact of margaret hatcher have estblished him as the most prescient and insightful analyst of comtempaorary conservatism.

collected here got the first time with a new introduction, these essays show how thatcher has expoloited discontent with labour's record in office and with aspects of the welfare state to devise a potent authoritarian, populist ideology. hall's critical approach is leaborated here in essays on the formation of SDP, inner city riots, the falklands war and the significance of antonio gramsci. he suggess that thatcherism is skilfully employing the restless and individualistic dynamic of consumer capitalism to promote a swinging programme of 'regressive modernization'

the hard road to renewal is as concerned with elaborating a new politics fotr the left as it is with the project of the right. hall insists that the left can no longer trade on inherited politics and tradition. socialists today must be as radical as modernity itself. valuable pointers to a new politics are identified in the experience of feminism, the campaigns of the GLC and the world-wide response to BAND AID