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

The Tories have launched a pre-emptive strike on the rights of workers and, in particular, their union representatives, in the workplace. Aidan Burley, Conservative MP for Cannock Chase, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Justine Greening, laid out in some detail the work of union reps to the House of Commons.  He then asked rhetorically: “Is [...]

Britain’s student loan debt is now standing at a record £35 billion before the Conservative-led Government has even begun to introduce higher student loans and tuition fees, a new paper from the House of Commons library reveals this month. The debt is predicted by the Government to reach £80 billion by 2017 as a result [...]

Unison’s general secretary, Dave Prentis, has hit back at fat-cat businessmen and ministers in the Conservative-led coalition who have questioned the legitimacy of the union’s strike ballot – and the overwhelming “yes” vote by members – against the Government’s plans to make public sector workers pay more, and work longer, to get less than they [...]

Daniel Ortega, the one-time Sandinista leader who defied US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, has won a landslide victory in presidential elections in Nicaragua. President Ortega, who returned to the presidency in 2007 after leading the Latin American country from 1985-1990, had won 63 per cent of the vote by the time Tribune went [...]

Britain faces entering 2012 in recession as growth figures continue to flatline, according to economic research published this week. Figures for the last three months (Q4 or fourth quarter) are expected to show the economy contracting as manufacturing – which was supposed to drive recovery – struggles and the country’s services sector, which accounts for [...]

Chancellor George Osborne last week flew a kite suggesting he will freeze any increase in social welfare payments when the annual uprating is put to MPs next month – to avoid matching September’s 5.2 per cent CPI increase. In his first Budget last year, Mr Osborne said he would henceforth peg any annual increase in [...]

Germany is coming under mounting pressure to allow the European Central Bank to increase its capacity to buy bonds of the weaker European countries as European Union governments become increasingly frustrated about the ongoing sovereign debt crisis. Although the ECB bought Italian and Spanish bonds for a short period following the EU summit in August, [...]