The Centre Can’t Save Democracy
The political centre sells itself as the answer to our democratic crisis, but it was their technocratic reforms that hollowed out politics – and facilitated the rise of the far-right.
4348 Articles by:
Rae Hart
Rae Deer is an economist and freelance writer.
Images of a Workers’ Barcelona
A newly-discovered archive of photos from revolutionary Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War depicts the collectives, institutions and workplaces of a society run by workers themselves.
Class Politics Are the Key to Myanmar’s Future
As protests against Myanmar’s coup continue, it’s clear that the only coalition which can defeat the junta is an alliance of the working class which bridges the country’s ethnic, regional and gender divides.
Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition
The Labour leadership’s efforts to appear more Royalist than the Tories is a symptom of their sycophantic politics – if you won’t utter a critical word about the royal family, you’re not serious about challenging power.
Hartlepool Wants Real Change, Not Empty Words
The fact that the Tories might win a seat like Hartlepool shows how much Labour has lost touch with its roots – the only way to win the by-election is to fight for working-class communities.
Birmingham’s Bright Lights
Birmingham has a reputation as a place where cultural life died a death in the face of grinding poverty, but that is a sterile myth – we explore the Second City’s brief and unexpected role as a centre of 1960s radical counterculture.
Against Vaccine Passports
Covid-19 vaccines are an astonishing medical breakthrough which offer hope for a life after lockdown – but giving the state the power to police their uptake would be a huge threat to civil liberties.
Britain’s Media Monopoly Is a Threat to Democracy
Britain’s media is owned by a tiny handful of corporations, with three companies controlling 90% of newspaper circulation – if we want a real democracy, it’s time to break the power of the media moguls.
Unconventional Comics
Long dismissed as child’s play, comics have carved out space for themselves as a form through which to examine the political – touching on everything from urban history to the fight against fascism.
Surviving While Excluded
During the past year, up to 3 million people have been left out of the government’s Covid-19 response schemes – they have faced the pandemic without any income support, and the consequences have often been dire.
The Signs that Make a City
The signs on the street are a measure of how much authorities care about their citizens – and from stylish fonts to neon lights, Britain has a lot to learn from European cities which have used signage to enliven the urban landscape.
A Letter from a Sacked British Gas Worker
Today, British Gas sacked hundreds of engineers who refused to sign contracts with vastly inferior terms and conditions – one of the sacked workers writes for Tribune about the strike, its lessons and the urgent need to outlaw ‘fire and rehire.’
32. Biden’s America: An Interview with Doug Henwood
This week, Grace speaks to Doug Henwood, author of Wall Street: How it Works and For Whom, about Biden’s stimulus package and what’s been going on in US stock markets – plus how workers can organise post-Covid.
Why We Need a Right to Food
The latest research suggests 100,000 families used foodbanks for the first time during lockdown – but there is an alternative to Britain’s deepening hunger crisis: a campaign to make the ‘Right to Food’ a legal reality.
The Market Can’t Be Tamed
In the post-war era, liberals abandoned the cause of a truly democratic economy in favour of trying to curbs the excesses of the market – and in the process, gave up any prospect of real social equality.
Inequality Is Bad for Your Health
As Britain emerges from lockdown, the government is projecting an image of optimism – but inequality was at crisis levels long before Covid-10 and poverty can be as bad for public health as any pandemic.
Capitalism’s Covid Recovery Will Deepen Social Inequality
Across the West, governments are plotting pandemic recoveries which will enrich asset-owners and squeeze workers – it’s time to build coalitions that can fight back against the next phase of capitalist inequality.
The Trawler and the Seagulls
‘Inhuman Resources,’ starring Eric Cantona, is an improbable thriller about a worker thrown on the scrapheap who becomes a heroic supervillain – a story which resonates with populist insurgencies of right and left.
How Blairism Failed the Working Class
Despite pursuing a number of redistributive policies, Blair’s Labour government left the fundamental architecture of Thatcher’s economy in place – and failed to break the cycle of deepening inequality.
When Hobsbawm Went Jazz
The British left of the 1950s eschewed modern jazz in favour of folk and trad – but Eric Hobsbawm bucked the trend, writing a secret music column about the radical potential of ‘jazz solidarity.’