The release of a Reform football shirt this summer was a depressing sign of how effectively the Right has colonised working-class popular culture. Now the Left must fight back with a determined cultural strategy of its own.

The longstanding BBC documentary maker fixed its gaze this year on Britain at the end of the last millennium — with a new focus on the workers who faced the consequences of monetarism and individualism. But was this a tale he'd told before?

As a floundering Labour government continues to sneer that it prefers ‘power’ to ‘protest’, we should remember that direct action has always been an important adjunct to party politics — and that, in an essential sense, protest is power.

Almost 80 percent of arts and culture workers in Britain have considered leaving the industry due to burnout, low pay, and precarious employment. The sector urgently needs to protect its workers and guarantee healthy, stable working conditions.

Palestine Action Éire activists are challenging definitions of ‘illegality’ by grounding their actions in international law. Can they prove that justice can be won beyond the state?

As President Trump hails more than two centuries of US hegemony in the Western hemisphere, he is using Puerto Rico — one of its victims — as a staging post for his military build-up against Venezuela.

Despite becoming a progressive favourite in recent years, Taylor Swift’s billionaire feminism has always been a vibes-only endeavour guided by consumerism and the girl boss ethic. Is it now shading into something yet more sinister?

Trump’s new security strategy will pursue American hegemony, exerting imperialist militarism and prioritising economic interests. The UK must defend the principle of sovereignty — and exercise its independence.

Despite their apparently progressive credentials, many leading lights of the music industry have been equivocal at best when it comes to opposing the genocide in Palestine. What are they playing at?

After a difficult start, could the new revival of the BBC’s often radical 1970s and 80s anthology drama series finally have promise?

Once regarded as a utopian project, digitalisation is now letting Big Tech and superpower governments regulate the world in ominous new ways. Is rejecting the devices and technologies they control the only effective way to fight back?

While psychotherapy is often viewed as an exclusive, individualistic preserve, it also incorporates a strong element of social critique — and its modern history contains startling examples of therapy rooted in radical democratic principles.

A condescending parody of urban pidgin, the term ‘Yookay’ has come to reflect increasingly hostile right-wing sentiments in Britain. But could it be flipped to serve a more unifying function?

Despite being shafted by the Tories on funding, Bradford has managed to make something more communitarian and meaningful out of hosting the Turner Prize shortlist.

A stinging new novella by John King uses the narrative of an anti-vivisection cell to explore deeper, darker themes of fascism, colonialism, and genocide — cementing its creator's status as one of Britain's essential fictional commentators.

Despite initiatives purporting to promote working-class writing, the publishing industry remains woefully out of touch with the needs, pressures, and dreams of life outside bourgeois Britain. Is another working-class literature possible?

To ensure that any future socialist government is not undermined by the British establishment as soon as it enters office, we need to build up wider structures of social power capable of sustaining it.

A new song-by-song history tells the epic tale of the radical Welsh band, from glam-punk Valley teens to melancholic centrist dads. But does it manage to resolve their complicated contradictions?

Despite shifting public opinion, New York's pro-Palestine movement remains fragmented and underpowered. Britain offers a blueprint for building something bigger.

A new book reflects on the music industry’s disturbing obsession with Nazi aesthetics and ideology — ranging over unexpected examples of fascist fetishism, and celebrating those who challenged it.

As Woodcraft Folk celebrates its 100th anniversary, the socialist non-profit organisation faces identity challenges — but the youth movement is arguably more relevant than ever, offering an antidote to a digital-centric, anxious society.

Ahead of Your Party’s democratic founding conference this weekend, we need to put redistribution, sustainability, and peace at the heart of a mass socialist movement that belongs to the grassroots.

For much of this year, Israel has been using the apparatus of humanitarianism to further its brutal campaign in Gaza. Is this just the latest example of the aid industry assisting ruthless governments and their nefarious power plays?

At the end of a politically hectic year, the Green Party under Zack Polanski is one of the few genuine success stories on the British left. How much potential is there in a future Red-Green alliance?

A new cinematic graphic novel should finally bring one of England’s most overlooked working-class socialist writers to a wide audience.

Worth reposting following today's Autumn Statement 👇

In 1988, Britain introduced a broadcasting ban on several political groups in Northern Ireland — today, as the government continues to invoke the threat of terrorism to censor free speech and the right to protest, is history repeating itself?

Rob Clayton’s latest book aims to capture the built environment of British post-war social democracy through optimistic blue skies and sunshine.

For centuries, jury trials have acted as a democratic guardrail against state power. The government’s plan to scrap them sets us on a path toward authoritarian justice.

Landlords are allowing precarious, uninhabitable living conditions right across the UK — but as an assertive local fightback by tenants in Manchester shows, major victories can be won through collective action.

This is lovely

ICYMI: My latest for @tribunemagazine.bsky.social on how Reform is dominating towns like #Biddulph

'he brought much-needed groundedness to a project that tirelessly announced itself to be about aping the resurrection...and breaking into heaven. While this was all well and good, there had to be some element that would stop the Roses from disappearing up their own fundament. That element was Mani.'

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...

As the Budget approaches, Labour must consign notions of the ‘undeserving’ poor to history.

Very good piece from @jemgilbert.bsky.social in the Tribune, if a tad overoptimistic.

Excellent piece by @jemgilbert.bsky.social I found especially interesting his point that the membership's centre of gravity remains soft left, meaning the 'what next for Labour' question has to be engaged with. It also made me think of the policy platform for Starmer's 2020 leadership campaign...

This is helpful and a tiny bit hopeful. Some form of extra parliamentary movement to gather the progressive bloc (which can mean whole parties, or sections of parties, or individuals), plus the unions is needed.

“Without pay that reflects the realities of the job, the NHS will continue to bleed talent and lose experience it cannot replace.” Great piece in @tribunemagazine.bsky.social which emphasises exactly why I was honoured to join the British Medical Association picket line at the Royal last week ✊🏽

My latest for @tribunemagazine.bsky.social On how Reform are making waves in towns like #Biddulph #NorthStaffordshire

Hoy analizo en @tribunemagazine.bsky.social la larga sombra de Franco sobre la democracia española, 50 años después de su muerte #20N tribunemag.co.uk/2025/11/fran...

On the fiftieth anniversary of Franco’s death, the influence of his dictatorship still lingers in Spain. As the country’s far right feeds on nostalgia for its fascist past, is its democracy coming under threat?

While the British left is buried in factional debate, Reform is rapidly securing a foothold in former socialist heartlands across the country — paving the way for a nightmarish far-right takeover of the British state.

In a symbolic joining of older and contemporary struggles against apartheid, Francesca Albanese delivered the Nelson Mandela lecture this autumn. Did her address manage to bury the fiction of the ‘liberal world order’ once and for all?

Wes Streeting blames industrial action for NHS chaos, but it is his own backing for underfunding and privatisation that has driven doctors onto picket lines. They deserve our full support.

Last week, Catherine Connolly, a socialist, was inaugurated as Ireland’s president. But she cannot save Irish politics alone — for real change, the Left must ensure that radical symbolism is backed up by radical reform.

While many socialists are rightly repulsed by the misdeeds of the Starmer government, its tenure will come to an end soon enough. When it does, we must be ready to renew the Labour Party’s radical mission.

Despite the party’s failure and scandals, the SNP is set to lead a historic fifth term in government in Holyrood next May. The Scottish Left needs to reestablish itself and rejuvenate the politics of ownership, class and democracy.

Lewisham’s Labour-led council are banking on selling Lewisham town centre, an informal and much-loved holdout against gentrification, to make way for luxury flats.