Has ‘the great moving right show’ stopped

Soundings - ISSN 1362-6620
Volume 2024 Number 87

Has ‘the great moving right show’ stopped
Michael Rustin pages 134-146
DOI: 10.3898/SOUN:87.07.2024

Abstract

This article revisits ‘New Labour’s Double Shuffle’, the critique of the New Labour government that Stuart Hall wrote in 2003, to see how this might provide guidance in understanding the conjuncture of the Labour government elected in July 2024. Hall’s article had followed on from his pre-election analysis of the Thatcher project in ‘The Great Moving Right Show’, in 1978. His argument was that the dominant agenda of the New Labour governments was one of subordination to pressures emanating from capital, with the demands of Labour’s supporters being subordinated to this. It is proposed that the relations between the dominant and subordinate elements in these structures should be seen in dialectical terms, as an ongoing struggle between co nflicting social forces. The question is raised of whether the current Labour government is essentially a continuation of the New Labour project, or whether it might be something different. The argument is made that to achieve a favourable outcome in a new struggle for hegemony it is essential that Labour r emain in office for several parliamentary terms, and that there be a critical engagement with what its government does.

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To cite this article
Michael Rustin (2024) Has ‘the great moving right show’ stopped, Soundings, 2024(87), 134-146. https://doi.org/10.3898/SOUN:87.07.2024

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