Alan Hudson

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Alan Hudson (Date of Birth: 04/01/1951) is an academic and is associated with the libertarian anti-environmental LM network. He was a director of the RCP publications company Junius Publications from before 1992 until it was wound up in 2000[1] and wrote an introduction for a book published by Junius for Living Marxism in 1995.[2] He has spoken at the Battle of Ideas, [3] an Institute of Ideas event, [4] the Manchester and Leeds Salons [5] [6] and for WORLDwrite. [7] He has written for Culture Wars, Channel Cyberia [8] and Spiked, [9] co-wrote a book with Dennis Hayes [10] and contributed to a book for Audacity. [11]. He was one of the first fifty signatories to the statement by the Academics for Academic Freedom. [12]

Career

Research and writing

In a study reportedly conducted in 1992 Hudson and co-author Dennis Hayes studies the alleged effect of Thatcherism on the working class by focussing on the allegedly key area of Basildon:

Remember Basildon man? Or his close neighbour, Essex man? Back in the late eighties and early nineties, these stereotypical figures were invoked whenever politicians or editorial writers wanted a shorthand way of representing the new face of the British working class. These shell-suited, vulgar, 'loadsamoney' characters were said to have forsaken their traditional allegiance to the cloth cap Labour party and to have found a new home in a Conservative party only too happy to champion individuality and self-betterment. They were hardly an admired cross-section of the population, but the notion that they were a new political entity was a powerful impetus to the creation of New Labour and the 'third way'. But sociologists Dennis Hayes and Alan Hudson were able to raise serious doubts about Basildon man's reality. In a 1992 survey, the year Basildon re -elected its Conservative MP, they found little of the brash aggressive materialism they had been led to expect.[13]

Hayes and Hudson then produced a second study with data collected in 1997. the study was published as a research report and by the New Labour think tank Demos:

Hayes and Hudson were sufficiently fascinated by the working class attitudes they unearthed to undertake a second, more extensive survey of the town in 1997. In their new book based on this work, The Mood of the Nation: Basildon Man Revisited (Demos), they provide further evidence for their original argument that Basildon Thatcherism was only skin deep.[13]


Publications

Notes

  1. Source: Companies House, Accessed 8 January 2011
  2. Frederick Engels Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, with an introduction by Alan Hudson London: Junius, 1995. . P/b, 8.5" x 5.", 73pp. 'Living Marxism Originals'.
  3. "Speaker details", Battle of Ideas website, accessed 4 November 2010
  4. IoI Education Conference, Institute of Ideas website, accessed 4 November 2010
  5. Speakers, Manchester Salon website, accessed 4 November 2010
  6. "Previous events", Birmingham Salon website, accessed 4 November 2010
  7. "Trainer Bios", WORLDwrite website, accessed 4 November 2010
  8. Young Persons Guide to History, University of Oxford website, accessed 28 November 2010
  9. "Citius, altius, fortius", Spiked website, accessed 4 November 2010
  10. "The Debate Deficit", Free Society website, accessed 4 November 2010
  11. "Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age", Audacity website, accessed 4 November 2010
  12. Signatories 1-100 About Us, AFAF website, accessed 4 November 2010
  13. 13.0 13.1 Laurie Taylor 'Off cuts' The Guardian (London) May 24, 2000 Guardian Society Pages; Pg. 9
  14. This is an updated version of Frank Furedi's and Joan Hoey's 1992 study: Frank Furedi and Joan Hoey Who are the C2s? A Social and Political Attitudes Survey. Basildon, 1992. Research report, 1992. It was reported in Alan Rusbridger, ESSEX CLEARS THE WAY FOR LANGDON HILLS MAN; News from BasildonThe Guardian (London) December 5, 1992, THE GUARDIAN FEATURES PAGE; Pg. 25