Alex Niven
@alexniven.bsky.social
📤 1765
📥 1772
📝 110
Editor
@TribuneMagazine.bsky.social
reposted by
Alex Niven
Tribune
1 day ago
A product of working-class Manchester and its second-generation Irish culture, Stone Roses bassist Mani — who has died aged 63 — was the ultimate team player, and an embodiment of socialist values in his life and art.
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/11/mani...
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Liam Inscoe-Jones
16 days ago
Really loved putting this together with Chal, a true legend of the game
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Alex Niven
Tribune
25 days ago
Radical British filmmaker Peter Watkins was briefly tipped by the BBC before The War Game made him a controversial pariah. But he persisted — and now, at 90, he is a hero of liberated, formally remarkable socialist art.
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/10/cryi...
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Crying for Freedom: Peter Watkins at 90
Radical British filmmaker Peter Watkins was briefly tipped by the BBC before The War Game made him a controversial pariah. But he persisted — and now, at 90, he is a hero of liberated, formally remark...
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/10/crying-for-freedom-peter-watkins-at-90
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Tribune
26 days ago
The high modernism of Glasgow novelist Alexander Trocchi has often been overshadowed by his low living. At the centenary of his birth, can we discern a meaningful literary legacy beyond his associations with existentialism, Situationism and counterculture?
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/salt...
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Saltire Situationism
The high modernism of Glasgow novelist Alexander Trocchi has often been overshadowed by his low living. At the centenary of his birth, can we discern a meaningful literary legacy beyond his associatio...
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/saltire-situationism
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Anarchist bricklayer Lucio Urtubia robbed banks to fund revolutionaries in Franco’s Spain, defrauding Citibank and getting away with it. Surely this is a story we’ve all been waiting for? Huw Lemmey on a contentious autobiography by a Spanish leftist hero.
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/the-...
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The People’s Bank Robber
Anarchist bricklayer Lucio Urtubia robbed banks to fund revolutionaries in Franco’s Spain, defrauding Citibank and getting away with it. Surely this is a story we’ve all been waiting for?
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/the-peoples-bank-robber
26 days ago
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Leigh Jones
about 1 month ago
The latest event I put on with
@alexniven.bsky.social
and
@pdkmitchell.bsky.social
takes place in Newcastle this Saturday. We have Owen Hatherley coming to
@alphabettitheatre.bsky.social
to discuss his new book for the latest
@lortburnspecials.bsky.social
. 🎟️
www.ticketsource.co.uk/alphabetti-t...
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Alex Niven
Leigh Jones
about 2 months ago
I put this night on with
@alexniven.bsky.social
and
@pdkmitchell.bsky.social
. Come and stroke your chin and drink loads of pints.
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Alex Niven
BenW
about 2 months ago
Attention North Easterners! These events put on by
@pdkmitchell.bsky.social
,
@leighsus.bsky.social
and
@alexniven.bsky.social
look great.
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Alex Niven
Tribune
3 months ago
Young people are facing one of the toughest job markets in decades: there has been a 33 percent drop in graduate job listings compared to this time last year. Read Tribune staff writer Grace Blakeley on the cost of living crisis.
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The Great Living Squeeze
A sense of malaise among younger generations is backed up by hard economic statistics speaking of a drastic decline in living standards. How can we overhaul the individualist non-society responsible…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/the-great-living-squeeze
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Alex Niven
Tribune
3 months ago
As our new issue, ‘Beyond Decline’, is released, Tribune editor Alex Niven argues collective hope is the antidote to societal despair and the key to recovering the soul of socialism.
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The War Against Decline
If it feels as though we’re living through a time of decline, that’s partly because social disintegration has been the whole point of mainstream politics for decades. But as the writing in the new…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/the-war-against-decline
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Richard Hull
3 months ago
#GreyLabour
was (I think) first elaborated by Tribune's editor
@alexniven.bsky.social
in February 2024 - spot on Alex. The latest article is behind a paywall, sorry, but you can read Alex's piece here:
tribunemag.co.uk/2024/02/grey...
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/grey...
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Grey Labour vs. the Working Class
Late 2020s British culture is dominated by an oppressive mix of boredom and quiet violence. Meanwhile, working-class forms of expression are aggressively marginalised by a decaying bourgeoisie.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/grey-labour-vs-the-working-class
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Liam Inscoe-Jones
3 months ago
I’m in this! Spoke to Chal Ravens about newness in music 15 years on from Retromania, AirPods, the new Niontay album and other things, I’m really proud of how it came out
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claire biddles
3 months ago
toot toot new tribune! i'm inside writing about philippa snow's excellent new book it's terrible the things i have to do to be me, which looks at the female celebrity as a monstrous magnifier of her civilian counterparts. buy a magazine!
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Alex Niven
Tribune
3 months ago
Our new issue, Beyond Decline, will arrive on subscribers’ doorsteps this week. Sneak preview:
tribunemag.co.uk/issue/beyond..
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Alex Niven
Tribune
4 months ago
A few weeks before Palestine Action was proscribed in Britain, anti-fascist French organisation Jeune Garde suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Macron government. Is Europe’s extreme centre trying to eradicate left activism?
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/is-b...
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Is Banning Left Protest the New Normal?
A few weeks before Palestine Action was proscribed in Britain, anti-fascist French organisation Jeune Garde suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Macron government. Is Europe’s extreme centre tr...
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/is-banning-left-protest-the-new-normal
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Alex Niven
Tribune
4 months ago
Visionary Japanese sci-fi author Izumi Suzuki anticipated our present malaise decades ago, in writing that combines melancholy for the failure of sixties radicalism with scepticism about a world of ubiquitous screens.
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Acid Japonisme
Visionary Japanese sci-fi author Izumi Suzuki anticipated our present malaise decades ago, in writing that combines melancholy for the failure of sixties radicalism with scepticism about a world of…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/acid-japonisme
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Alex Niven
Tribune
4 months ago
As socialists from all over the world prepare to attend the 139th Durham Miners’ Gala, we explore the story of the Gala’s iconic banners, which celebrate our historic solidarity and continuing hope in the face of oppression and hatred.
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DMG 2025: Communism in the Coalfields
As socialists from all over the world prepare to attend the 139th Durham Miners’ Gala, we explore the story of the Gala’s iconic banners, which celebrate our historic solidarity and continuing hope…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/dmg-2025-communism-in-the-coalfields
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
The long-shuttered cottage forge is the last remnant of a remarkable industrial experiment, the legacy of which should be written in iron, but is barely known. Paul Brown on Winlaton's claim as the foundation of the industrial revolution.
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DMG 2025: Birthplace of the Working Class
In the first of a series of pieces leading up to Saturday’s Durham Miners’ Gala, we examine a forgotten corner of County Durham with a strong claim to be the one of the global birthplaces of the…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/dmg-2025-birthplace-of-the-working-class
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
It is now several decades since the collapse of the British coal industry. But in Peterlee — a ‘left behind’ former mining town in County Durham — utopian dreams are being revived through a combination of grassroots creativity and public funding.
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DMG 2025: A New Career in a New Town
It is now several decades since the collapse of the British coal industry. But in Peterlee — a ‘left behind’ former mining town in County Durham — utopian dreams are being revived through a…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/dmg-2025-a-new-career-in-a-new-town
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Alex Niven
Paul Brown
5 months ago
Ahead of this weekend's Durham Miners' Gala, I wrote about the birthplace of the working class for
@tribunemagazine.bsky.social
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/dmg-...
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DMG 2025: Birthplace of the Working Class
In the first of a series of pieces leading up to Saturday’s Durham Miners’ Gala, we examine a forgotten corner of County Durham with a strong claim to be the one of the global birthplaces of the indus...
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/dmg-2025-birthplace-of-the-working-class?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
In a media landscape where nuanced political breakthroughs are often credited to ‘genius Svengalis’, spin doctor Morgan McSweeney has become the crown prince of Starmerism. But now his fragile empire is crumbling to dust.
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McSweeney’s Death Rattle
In a media landscape where nuanced political breakthroughs are often credited to ‘genius Svengalis’, spin doctor Morgan McSweeney has become the crown prince of Starmerism. But now his fragile empire…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/07/mcsweeneys-death-rattle
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Alex Niven
Leigh Jones
5 months ago
The next edition of the semi-regular culture night I put on with
@alexniven.bsky.social
and
@pdkmitchell.bsky.social
is only two days away and tickets are flying out. I'll be asking
@garethdennis.uk
all about trains!
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Alex Niven
Dave 'Him Over There' Proudlove 🏴☠️
5 months ago
My interview with
@alexniven.bsky.social
for
@tribunemagazine.bsky.social
earlier this year talking
#WorkandPlay
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/03/dave...
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Dave Proudlove: ‘Three Figures to Watch Fulham? Come on Lads’
A new book about grassroots football and its industrial past sheds light on neglected spaces of working-class experience. Tribune sat down with its author Dave Proudlove to talk gentrification, escapi...
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/03/dave-proudlove-three-figures-to-watch-fulham-come-on-lads
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Alex Niven
Bloomsbury Academic
5 months ago
As Oasis embarks on their 2025 reunion tour,
@alexniven.bsky.social
looks back to where it all began. Definitely Maybe check it out:
bit.ly/3ZSeDud
💙📚
#MusicSky
@3313books.bsky.social
@bloomsburymus.bsky.social
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
As the government slashes social security provision for the vulnerable, Rachel Reeves wants to relax her clampdown on ‘non-dom’ loopholes for the ultra-wealthy. Nothing better illustrates how Labour has abandoned ordinary people to become ‘capital’s B-team’.
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Labour Loves the Super-Rich
As the government slashes social security provision for the vulnerable, Rachel Reeves wants to relax her clampdown on ‘non-dom’ loopholes for the ultra-wealthy. Nothing better illustrates how Labour…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/labour-loves-the-super-rich
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
As the government designates Palestine Action a 'terrorist' group,
@jeremycorbyn.bsky.social
argues that MPs wouldn’t be here without the right to protest – and that this authoritarian crackdown must end now.
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/jere...
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Jeremy Corbyn: MPs Exist Because of Protest
As the government designates Palestine Action a 'terrorist' group, Jeremy Corbyn argues that MPs wouldn’t be here without the right to protest – and that this authoritarian crackdown must end now.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/jeremy-corbyn-mps-exist-because-of-protest
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
The government’s move to ban Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act is due to their effectiveness in disrupting genocide — and erodes the basis for dissent that all democratic societies need. An attack on Palestine Action is an attack on you.
tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/an-a...
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An Attack on Palestine Action is an Attack on You
The government’s move to ban Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act is due to their effectiveness in disrupting genocide — and erodes the basis for dissent that all democratic societies need.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/an-attack-on-palestine-action-is-an-attack-on-you
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
While news headlines are increasingly dominated by the nuclear face-off between Israel, Iran, and the US, life remains hellish for displaced families clinging on to the edge of the Gaza City shoreline. Who will speak for them?
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Gaza is Still Burning
While news headlines are increasingly dominated by the nuclear face-off between Israel, Iran, and the US, life remains hellish for displaced families clinging on to the edge of the Gaza City…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/gaza-is-still-burning
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
After fifty years of neoliberalism, smaller British cities have some of the worst life prospects in Western Europe. Does a case study of one of them offer any clues about how to challenge uneven development and reverse postindustrial decline?
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Whatever Happened to the Postindustrial City?
After fifty years of neoliberalism, smaller British cities have some of the worst life prospects in Western Europe. Does a case study of one of them offer any clues about how to challenge uneven…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/whatever-happened-to-the-postindustrial-city
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Alex Niven
Anna Doble
5 months ago
Oasis back. Pulp back. Blur, already been back and gone again... But is Britpop still a dirty word? Tomorrow: Join me
@foylesforbooks.bsky.social
with
@alexniven.bsky.social
& Jane Savidge on their
@333books.bsky.social
on Definitely Maybe and This is Hardcore 👇
www.foyles.co.uk/events/33-1/...
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
In our recent issue, ‘Facing the Future Again,’ Tribune culture editor Fergal Kinney explains how corporate consolidation is at the heart of the music industry's problems. Click below to read the full piece, now out from the paywall.
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Laissez-Faire Listening
The Swedish tech giant has rigged the music industry against artists, mined listeners for data, and made music boring for everyone. Or is that just what the major recording labels want you to believe?
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/laissez-faire-listening
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
In the past few years, British health workers have faced smears, targeted media attacks, and workplace persecution — all for the simple act of expressing support for Palestine.
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Apartheid’s War on the NHS
In the past few years, British health workers have faced smears, targeted media attacks, and workplace persecution — all for the simple act of expressing support for Palestine.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/apartheids-war-on-the-nhs
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
The Swedish tech giant has rigged the music industry against artists, mined listeners for data, and made music boring for everyone. Or is that just what the major recording labels want you to believe?
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Laissez-Faire Listening
The Swedish tech giant has rigged the music industry against artists, mined listeners for data, and made music boring for everyone. Or is that just what the major recording labels want you to believe?
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/laissez-faire-listening
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Alex Niven
Fergal Kinney
5 months ago
my Tribune review of Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine now free to read. Is Spotify evil? Yes! But is this also very convenient cover for the three major labels consolidating power and sucking money out of the industry? Yes!
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Alex Niven
Fergal Kinney
5 months ago
fantastic evisceration of a widely celebrated, posh gentleman farmer polemic by
@lucythraves.bsky.social
for Tribune, with perceptive reflections about the Right to Roam campaign
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Lucy Thraves
5 months ago
I reviewed a new book about land access by a writer purporting to be a neutral observer to that debate. It turns out, that's a lie.
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North East ppl, come to this!
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5 months ago
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Alex Niven
Lort Burn Specials
6 months ago
FRIDAY 4TH JULY. LORT BURN SPECIALS RETURNS. A Q&A with rail engineer and author
@garethdennis.bsky.social
plus live music and readings from others. At
@alphabettitheatre.bsky.social
in Newcastle. Tickets here:
www.alphabettitheatre.co.uk/lortburnspec...
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This devastating review of Patrick Galbraith’s Uncommon Ground by
@lucythraves.bsky.social
could burn the heather on a thousand grouse moors
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5 months ago
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
A new book by a former Shooting Times editor argues that large landowners are given a hard time, and that campaigns to increase public access to the countryside are wrong. Surprisingly enough, the establishment loves it.
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Solidarity of the Ruling Class
A new book by a former <i>Shooting Times</i> editor argues that large landowners are given a hard time, and that campaigns to increase public access to the countryside are wrong. Surprisingly enough,…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/solidarity-of-the-ruling-class
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
Yesterday’s Spending Review is another example of how the government is trying to muddle on through, leaving core services like social care underfunded, the wealth of the rich undertaxed, and millions of us exposed to worsening instability and insecurity.
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Things Can Only Get Greyer
Yesterday’s Spending Review is another example of how the government is trying to muddle on through, leaving core services like social care underfunded, the wealth of the rich undertaxed, and…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/things-can-only-get-greyer
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
‘Today, Greenland is being reimagined as a colonial frontier of a different sort, and a people who seem finally to be on the brink of independence are being threatened with re-annexation.’ Click below to read the full piece from Aaron Rosenberg.
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Did a Forgotten Sci-fi Novel Predict Trump 2.0?
The campaign to annex Greenland has provided one of the weirder subplots of Trump’s second presidential term. Was this harebrained colonialist episode anticipated in a now forgotten novel by two…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/did-a-forgotten-sci-fi-novel-predict-trump-2-0
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Alex Niven
Tribune
5 months ago
The campaign to annex Greenland has provided one of the weirder subplots of Trump’s second presidential term. Was this harebrained colonialist episode anticipated in a now forgotten novel by two modernist masters?
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Did a Forgotten Sci-fi Novel Predict Trump 2.0?
The campaign to annex Greenland has provided one of the weirder subplots of Trump’s second presidential term. Was this harebrained colonialist episode anticipated in a now forgotten novel by two…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/did-a-forgotten-sci-fi-novel-predict-trump-2-0
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Alex Niven
Tribune
6 months ago
Margaret Thatcher famously identified Blair as her greatest political achievement. Starmer might yet come to represent a similar victory for Nigel Farage.
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On National Centrism
‘Starmerism’ has been defined by absence rather than a firm plan for government. Now the Labour leadership is tending towards passive acceptance of the nationalist spirit of the age.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/on-national-centrism
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Leigh Jones
6 months ago
ICYMI, myself and the other Lort Burn Specials conspirators (
@alexniven.bsky.social
and
@pdkmitchell.bsky.social
) announced the latest event in our contribution to North East culture. I'll be talking to rail engineer and author
@garethdennis.bsky.social
about all things rail! Come down!
add a skeleton here at some point
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Alex Niven
Tribune
6 months ago
‘In fact, the strengthening of the war economy goes hand in hand with ongoing attempts to crush worker power, boost profits, and extend the state’s power over citizens.’ Grace Blakeley on the false promises of Military Keynesianism.
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The War Economy
One of the few policy innovations of the current Labour government is a turn towards rearmament under a new ‘military Keynesianism’. This means more profits for weapons manufacturers — and more…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/the-war-economy
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Alex Niven
Tribune
6 months ago
In our new issue, ‘Facing the Future Again,’ Tribune staff writer Grace Blakeley argues that Labour's turn towards rearmament under a new ‘military Keynesianism’ means more profits for weapons manufacturers and more authority for capitalist states — and more authority for capitalist states.
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The War Economy
One of the few policy innovations of the current Labour government is a turn towards rearmament under a new ‘military Keynesianism’. This means more profits for weapons manufacturers — and more…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/the-war-economy
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Alex Niven
Tribune
6 months ago
‘For socialists in both countries, however, it’s never been clearer that the parties’ respective approaches are dead ends, failing in even the basic task of labourism: protecting working-class interests.’ Ben Conway on the uncanny and underwhelming similarities between Starmer and Albanese.
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Starmerism Down Under
Anthony Albanese’s Australian Labor Party is competing with Starmer’s for blandness and capitulation — and in doing so, proving the importance of rebuilding international working-class power.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/06/starmerism-down-under
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Alex Niven
Tribune
6 months ago
As British establishment opinion begins to turn against Israel, the hypocrisy shown by government figures like Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who long defended Israeli brutality, is both ironic and infuriating.
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Too Lammy, Too Late
As British establishment opinion begins to turn against Israel, the hypocrisy shown by government figures like Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who long defended Israeli brutality, is both ironic and…
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/05/too-lammy-too-late
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