Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

This week’s Tribune, available by subscription or at selected branches of WHSmith has all the latest news and analysis from the campaign trail.

We continue our profiles of key marginal seats with reports from Watford, Brighton Pavilion and Oxford East – all Labour held seats with strong challenges from other parties. We also have Joy Johnson on the Clegg phenomenon, Chris Proctor having a laugh at the expense of floating voters and Ian Aitken on the Murdochs.

Exclusive to the print edition of the magazine, we have Paris Jefferson’s photo diary of a day on the campaign trail with the Prime Minister.

Remember, the only place you can read all of Tribune on the day of publication is in the print edition. So subscribe now!

Widespread glee at the signs of impending panic that Rupert Murdoch’s representatives in Wapping – former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks and her boss James Murdoch – were wobbling at backing the Tories against Rupert’s own instincts. He has been widely reported as unconvinced and unimpressed by David Cameron and George Osborne. It appears that during their widely-reported hissy fit directed at acting Independent editor Simon Kelner – when they took offence at the Indy’s relaunch slogan that Rupert Murdoch won’t decide the election, Indy readers will – they threatened to “monster” or “turn over” the Indy’s new owner, Alexander Lebedev. Not only did the paper respond with a cheeky wrap-around the following day saying “Lebedev won’t decide this election, you will” – a wry two-fingered salute to Rebecca and James, albeit mystifying to many outside the industry – but old man Rupe himself appears to have been greatly displeased. Murdoch biographer and chronicler Michael Wolff not only reported The Sun’s own political editor as saying, in somewhat saltier language, that his job was to get the Tory leader into Number 10, but that Rupert had been forced to warn James of the folly in threatening another owner. Murdoch senior has an track record in spotting and backing winners  – until now. Having backed John McCain for the White House, he does not want to make the same mistake here, especially when he has his sights on Britain’s broadcasting industry .