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

Gordon Brown in 2007: “I think we’re moving from this period when, if you like, celebrity matters, when people have become famous for being famous. I think you can see that in other countries too – people are moving away from that to what lies behind the character and the personality. I’m not sure that [...]

Will under-fire Barack Obama take heart from the revelation that Norman Tebbit – the archest of the arch-Thatcherites– might have voted for him as US President? Probably not.

Last week, the Daily Mirror labelled Peter Mandelson “the James Bond of British politics” on the grounds that he has “a licence to kill off the Tories in the general election”. But surely Lord Mandy is rather more reminiscent of another Ian Fleming character: Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the sinister mastermind behind the buccaneering free enterprise [...]

Brave and optimistic souls are battling to ensure Labour’s manifesto comes out looking, well Labour. Campaigners are still pressing for the East Coast Line, which was last year taken under the public wing after its private owners messed up, to be retained in public hands. Problem is, Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has already put the [...]

What was it Gordon Brown said about reining in the banks? It had to be done on an international basis. Well, the Government is now pursuing an international deal. But it doesn’t look much like a clampdown. More like a rescue operation. Britain is colluding with Spain to block tougher European Union rules on hedge [...]

David Cameron’s communications chief Andy Coulson looks like he will be needing a few explanations for his boss, if not the boys in blue. He was editor of the News of the World when it turns out, thanks to a Guardian investigation, more than 100 people in public life – prominent and not so prominent [...]

Former Tribune editor Bob Edwards was reminiscing with colleagues from the magazine and his Fleet Street days as editor of the Sunday Mirror at a gathering in London when the current editor recalled the time he had been arrested as a spy for attempting to take photographs of the main station in Belgrade, then the [...]

The Tory Party might not know it, but David Cameron is about to take Britain deeper into Europe than ever before. In fact, he plans to move his government to Brussels. Well, at least part of it. Oliver Letwin, who chairs the party’s policy review, confirmed at a think tank conference that if the Tories [...]

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger was brought down to earth rather abruptly after delivering the prestigious Hugh Cudlipp lecture. At the end of his hour-long exposition on the future of the newspaper industry and journalism in the digital future to an audience of academics and journalists, he was thanked by the great Mirror man’s widow Lady [...]

There have been many unflattering suggestions made about the pictures of David Cameron’s strangely flawless-looking face on his £500,000 posters, not least from Star Trek devotees. Trekkies will yawn at the internet joke that the Tory leader’s Botox-happy appearance resembles the android Lieutenant Commander Data, but Tribune has a better idea. On the right is [...]