Chuck G. asks 'So, James give your own views of Hobbes---if you think they are representative of a liberal-left view in UK academic circles.'
Well, I don't think I am representative of such. Contemporary liberal thinking would be down on Hobbes, in much the same way as it is down on the (rather later figure of) A.V. Dicey (see Tony Wright's book Citizens or Subjects, for eg).
Myself, without thinking it through all that seriously, I would probably see Hobbes as a primitive but necessary stage in the development of Social Contract theory, corresponding to the primitive movement of the parliamentary forces in the Civil War. As Cromwell tended to lean on dictatorship where the social basis of his republicanism was too weak, so too Hobbes tended to a rather underdeveloped version of social contract theory (comparable to Machiavelli's) where agency is found in the Sovereign - modelled on the Lord Protector Cromwell in Hobbes' case, as it was on some Italian Prince in Machiavelli's.
Probably it woudl be worth checking C.B Macpherson for the left wing view, and Hayek for the right wing. Without checking, I am guessing they would both be hostile. I don't know whether there is an Hegelian case for Hobbes, but if there isn't I think I would be tempted to make it.