TRIBUNE ON NORWICH NORTH.....

Tribune describes the Norwich north result as a "cack-handed, futile sacrifice" I could not agree more and the rest of the editorial is below.

http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2009/07/30/the-real-lesson-of-norwich-north/

GOOD LUCK TO TRIBUNE......

One of my abiding memories as a Labour activist was the Tribune rally in 1981 at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton. The one where ( at the risk of sounding like an episode of Friends) Margaret Beckett threw down the gauntlet to Neil Kinnock for not backing Tony Benn as Deputy Leader.
Earlier this year, Tribune faced oblivion but it's been re-launched and the link below shows the recent celebration in Parliament. Beckett features along with John Prescott and Peter Hain plus Billy Hayes and Tony Benn. I wish it well and as Benn says it's " a beacon of hope." So are the MPs who maintain our hope in democratic socialism as New Labour implodes. Let's not give up on the Labour Party. The fact Tribune is still around is a cause for optimism.

http://www.labourhome.org/forum/?p=6031

LAST CALL FOR LABOUR IN TRIBUNE

This week's Tribune has an excellent editorial with which I wholeheartedly concur. It's change direction - or lose - as far as the Government is concerned. Maybe it is stating the blindingly obvious but let's be clear who is to blame for the current mess the Government is in. Not the Tory media, not the dispirited left, not the dwindling band of Labour activists, but a leadership which has doggedly, mystifyingly ignored commonsense calls for a return to the left of centre. The kinds of policies contained in the People's Charter, which is not wild-eyed Trotskyism, but a modest raft of policies which would restore people's faith and hope in Labour politics.
The Tribune link is below
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2009/05/07/tribune-comment-the-time-of-reckoning-is-very-near/

TRIBUNE SAVED BY MYSTERY BUYER.....

I'm glad to note that Tribune has apparently been saved by a mystery buyer. But the jury is out as to what it will morph into after being jettisoned by the union conglomerate which kept it going in recent years. The mystery benefactor wants to broaden it beyond the Labour Party and include more European news and features.
So the danger is it will become another amorphous left-of-centre magazine - and even less appealing. Tribune was once a serious must-read on the Labour Left but lost its major editorial strength when the Tribune Group of MPs disbanded in the early 1990's. It means well, but it is meaningless without a power base in Parliament. And in recent years many of the articles have been ( excuse my language) piss-poor. Still, I wish the editorial and production staff whose jobs have been saved all the best

WHY TRIBUNE IS DYING

I was saddened to read this week that Tribune is likely to fold Not so much because it is a fantastic read. It's not. But at one time Tribune truly was the voice of the Labour Left.In its heyday in the 1940's and 1950's , contributors included such luminaries as George Orwell, Harold Laski, Aneurin Bevan and J B Priestley.There was also of course the Tribune Group of MPs which at one time had almost 100 Parliamentarians. The Sunday night rallies at Labour Party Conference were THE event to go to.
Tribune lost its way with the demise of the Tribune Group , which started with the schism in 1981 over Tony Benn's candidature for the Deputy leadership . Chris Mullin was editor for a bit then Mark Seddon, whose departure a couple of years ago also left it floundering.
I cancelled my subscription some years ago. Why? Because there really wasn't any point in Tribune any more. Mildly critical of New Labour, but not really offering any serious analysis, its content had become anodyne and largely provided by ex-hacks from the Daily Mirror, no doubt doing favours to their former colleague Chris McLaughlin. Fair enough given the plightof the publication - but not a challenging read. The Letters page had the same contributors every fortnight and the Diary page was simply awful. Reviews likewise. Neither a newspaper nor a magazine, neither left nor New Labour, Tribune has simply lost its way.
Yet there is a space for a serious left publication. Last year the Labour Briefing AGM made the (wrong) decision not to become LRC Briefing. Websites are great and in some respects they have replaced the printed word - but political journals still I think have a role to fill. If Tribune does bite the dust, I hope the Labour left can re-claim something from the ashes. In the early 1980's there was a short-lived but excellent publication called New Socialist ( nothing to do with New Labour) . Maybe the title should be revived......

SUPPORT THE WINDFALL TAX CAMPAIGN

Tribune has joined forces with Compass in a campaign for a windfall tax - not a cop-out which lets the energy companies off the hook. A campaign very much worth signing up to . Backing already from Tony Benn, Dianne Abbott and Keighley MP Ann Cryer.

TRIBUNE AT 70....

Amused to learn that my General Secretary Jeremy Dear was out on town with Gordon Brown the other night to celebrate Tribune's 70th birthday. He does not say where but their favoured hang-out used to be the Gay Hussar in Soho, which I have been "meaning" to visit for over 25 years.

Gathering dust on my bookshelves is a volume celebrating Tribune's 40th birthday -published at the height of the Labour Left's influence on the Party. On its heyday, Tribune's distinguished list of contributors included George Orwell, Michael Foot and Nye Bevan. But times have changed, and it must be said that in some part the Tribunites, at one time an influential and sizeable force within the PLP, were in more recent years to a fair extent to blame for the demise of socialist ideology in the Labour Party. First, a gang of around 5 Tribunites (including neil Kinnock) managed to make sure that Tony Benn never became Labour deputy leader by reneging on supporting him. Then Kinnock became Leader and promptly abandoned his "Tribunite" policies. Clause 4, the Tribunite wing of Labour Students ( then NOLS) actively supported the witch-hunting of Militant out of the Party ( as did Kinnock's enoturage) and slowly, maybe irrevocably, the Party moved to the right. In the fullness of time the Tribune group of MPs was immersed into New Labour ( including its former editor Chris Mullin) and its doldrums only stopped when Mark Seddon, a decent mainstream leftie, became editor in the 1990's. Until recently, I subscribed to Tribune. But increasingly it has become a tame and largely toothless publication which has been afraid to speak out against Brown's lurch to the right. However, there is now a new website which I'm happy to link to. I hope in the years ahead that Tribune will rediscover its left-wing roots and be a force for change at the top......