[4] Jacques joined the Communist Party of Great Britain at eighteen, and at both Manchester and Cambridge universities was very active in student politics.

[5] Profoundly affected by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the May events in Paris in 1968, which he described as his 'political birth',[8] he was one of the early leaders of the Eurocommunist or reformist wing of the party, particularly influenced by the work of Antonio Gramsci.

[12] In 1977 Jacques was chosen to succeed James Klugmann as editor of Marxism Today, the theoretical magazine of the Communist Party, to which he had contributed for a number of years.

As editor of Marxism Today, Jacques presided over the golden age of the magazine, when its articles received national attention and helped to shape many debates on politics.

[15] Neal Ascherson described the magazine as 'the most serious single focus for political discussion' in the late 1970s and 1980s, adding that 'Few read it, but a whole generation chewed over its ideas'.

[17] Kevin Halpin, another senior party figure, declared that 'The conclusion that I draw is that Martin Jacques is not a fit person to be the editor (of Marxism Today) and I shall so move'.

Through these and other articles, including his own editorials, Jacques and Marxism Today were influential voices in critiquing the failures of the Labour Party and of postwar UK corporatist politics, and in understanding the rise of 'Thatcherism', a term which Marxism Today defined and helped to shape – though it did not coin the term – at a time when most analysts regarded Thatcher as no different from previous Conservative prime ministers.

[23] Marxism Today became known for its innovative designs and marketing strategies, which included the introduction of advertisements, and even a line of branded goods such as mugs, t-shirts, and boxer shorts.

[14] In 1987 the American journalist James M. Perry identified a new fashion trend in London: 'Call them "yummies" – young, upwardly mobile Marxists.

In the current issue, crammed with goodies for these yummies, readers are urged to send in their "hard-earned kopeks" to buy "the latest consumer indulgences" ....

[15] In October 1988, through the pages of Marxism Today, Jacques launched the 'New Times' project, which sought to understand a post-Fordist and increasingly globalised world.

By then he had negotiated the financial independence of the magazine from the Communist Party,[25] but declared that 'I have always hated institutions that don't know when to call it a day'.

[16] In April 1997, Jacques and Stuart Hall analysed the Blair phenomenon, of which they were deeply critical, arguing that the 'fundamental point of departure [of New Labour] is that the last 18 years of Conservative government constitute the new natural law'.

[26] A subsequent article for the New Statesman further underlined the extent to which Blair had merely accepted rather than challenged the Thatcherite response to post-Fordism and globalisation.

[27] In November 1998, Marxism Today returned for a one-off special issue edited by Jacques which extended this critique, with contributions by Eric Hobsbawm, Stuart Hall, Will Hutton, Richard Wilkinson, Suzie Orbach, Tom Nairn, Suzanne Moore, Anatole Kaletsky and others.

In 1993, he, with the Marxism Today contributor Geoff Mulgan, later director of policy at 10 Downing Street under Tony Blair, and others co-founded Demos.

Jacques scripted and presented the BBC Television programmes Italy on Trial (1993), The Incredible Shrinking Politician (1993), The End of the Western World (2 parts, 1996), and Proud to be Chinese (1998).

Westernisation, he suggested, had peaked, and China's rise will lead to a growing process of sinicisation in the world and the end of a Western-dominated international order.

[35] Joseph Kahn praised the book's 'exhaustive, incisive exploration of possibilities that many people have barely begun to contemplate about a future dominated by China'.

"[38] Jacques met Harinder Kaur (Hari) Veriah, a Malaysian lawyer of Indian descent, while on holiday on the island of Tioman in Malaysia in 1993.

While celebrating the new millennium with Jacques and their friends Eric and Marlene Hobsbawm, Harinder had an epileptic seizure and was taken to Ruttonjee Hospital.