"New Times", Lawrence and Wishart 1989, in association with Marxism Today, ed Stuart Hall and Martin Jacques.
Many reprints from articles in Marxism Today.
contributors in alphabetical order:
Neal Ascherson, Sarah Benton, Rosalind Brunt, Bea Campbell, David Edgar, Stuart Hall, Dick Hebdige, David Held, Paul Hirst, Martin Jacques, Charlie Leadbeater, David Marquand, Frank Mort, Geoff Mulgan, Robin Murray, Tom Nairn, Michael Rustin, Gareth Stedman-Jones, Fred Steward, Göran Therborn, John Urry, Gwyn Williams.
Last year there was short-lived gossip that Charlie Leadbeater had become Tony Blair's favourite guru.
The volume ends with Manifesto for New Times, which was edited by the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Penultimate paragraph of the Manifesto:
"One of the most striking, hopeful and inspiring examples of how to respond to these questions creatively has been provided by Gorbachev. Perestroika is creative because it is confident enough to take risks with the meaning of socialism. The role of the party, planning and the state are being questioned. Gorbachev talks of a new socialist morality of enterprise, individual responsibility and initiative within the Soviet society. He has confidently rejected the old polarities of the cold war. Instead he talks about common human values, self-determination and pluralism. Gorbachev has had the honesty to admit that socialism has suffered from the arrogance of omniscience and the stagnation of bureaucracy. If he came to a party everyone would want to talk to him."
After the transformation of the Communist Party of Great Britain into Democratic Left, the journal of the organisation was called New Times.
At the end of last year a conference of Democratic Left decided to abolish its structure - already essentially a network - and hand over to something to be called the New Times Network, later this year. This is consistent with the final sentence of the quote above which privileges the word 'party' in its social sense rather than its political sense.
"New Times" has been very influential in the UK in networking. However it has considerable problems in defining a core centre for the network with a sense of loyalty to that centre. It is not clear whether it can continue to exist another ten years as a separate current.
Chris Burford
London