Steve Albini, who has died aged 61, was one of the most uncompromising figures to ever defend art against its corruption by market forces, and for musicians to be considered as workers who deserved the full fruits of their labour. Steve Albini (1962-2024) Bands came to Steve Albini to sound like themselves. The engineer – who died this week of a heart attack aged 61 – outlined his approach to Nirvana in a letter before he recorded In Utero, stating that he was only interested in capturing the band exactly as they were, right then and there. ‘If you will commit yourselves to that as ..read more

Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram quit Westminster after seeing how it made real change impossible. Speaking to Tribune, they discuss how injustices from Hillsborough to the housing crisis come from a system wired against northerners and workers everywhere. Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram and Greater Manchster Mayor Andy Burnham. In summer 2016, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram shook hands with each other to resign their seats in the House of Commons. In desperate need of escape from a political sphere that they found suffocating and London-centric, both MPs believed that Britain had ..read more

Andy Beckett's new book tracks the journey of Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone and John McDonnell — under the influence of Tony Benn — from Labour outcasts to their attempt to remake British capitalism. Nobody noticed it, but the funniest thing happened when Hugo Chavez visited Britain in 2006. At the Camden Centre, a large art deco town hall in Central London near the British Library, the event hosted by then London Mayor Ken Livingstone was packed out with young people, suddenly more curious and more left-leaning thanks to the political mistakes of a now waning New Labour g ..read more

Labour’s newest MP has an astonishing record: defending convicted sex offenders and attacking everyone from refugees to Marcus Rashford. Natalie Elphicke’s defection doesn’t show her principles have changed, but how Labour has abandoned theirs. Keir Starmer welcomes Natalie Elphicke's defection. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images) Meet Natalie Elphicke, Labour’s newest MP. She arrived in Parliament in 2019, having replaced her then-husband Charlie Elphicke after he was charged with sexual assault. On his conviction, she told the Sun he was being punished for being ‘charming, wealthy, charismat ..read more

Fifty years ago this week, South Asians at Leicester's Imperial Typewriters factory went on strike to demand respect and dignity at work — confronting the racism of their bosses and the unions that failed to support them. A march in support of the Imperial Typewriter strikers. (Getty Images) It was once the second-richest city in Europe, known for its hosiery, knitwear, shoe, and light engineering industries. ‘Leicester clothes the world,’ some said. By the 1970s, however, the Midlands metropolis saw its major manufacturing giants collapse as recession kicked in and unemployment rose.  I ..read more

On this day, in 1978, garment worker Altab Ali was murdered in a racist attack in East London. Over four decades on, the struggle against racism continues, writes Apsana Begum MP. Today marks the 46th anniversary of the murder of Altab Ali, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi Sylheti textile worker, who was killed in a racially motivated attack on 4 May 1978 in East London, as he walked home from work. This was not an isolated incident. Two weeks before Altab Ali’s murder, 10-year-old Kennith Singh was stabbed to death by racists in Canning Town. And two months later, in June 1978, Ishaque Ali died of ..read more

In the years after the Second World War, African independence fighters seized world attention, forcing democrats in Europe to reckon with problems of colonialism and freedom on the continent. Tribune’s historical journey towards emphatic support for African decolonisation leaves a record of enormous relevance for the anti-colonial left today. Tribune, July 12, 1963 Julius Nyerere, socialist leader of the Tanganyikan African National Union, and future first president of independent Tanzania, wrote for Tribune shortly before his 1960 election as chief minister of a British colony on the cusp of ..read more

From facing some of World War Two’s bloodiest battles to becoming a union organiser and opposing austerity in his retirement, Walter Nixon — who has died aged 101 — spent his whole life fighting injustice. Walter Nixon (1922-2024) Our granddad Walter Nixon, who died on Sunday 21 April at the age of 101, has always been seen as a fixed point on the lane in Suffolk where he was born and lived for over a century. His apple trees would stand proud in his garden as he offered carrier bags full of them to passers-by, flying the red flag from his flagpole over the Suffolk countryside. Most peop ..read more

Today would have been Pete Seeger's birthday. We remember his contributions to song and socialism. Photo of Pete Seeger Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Pete Seeger, one of the most influential artists in American history, was born on May 3rd 1919. Pete provided much of the soundtrack for the political awakening of several generations of activists. The songs he wrote, including the antiwar tunes, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Turn, Turn, Turn,” and those he has popularized, including “This Land Is Your Land” and “We Shall Overcome,” have been recorded ..read more

Unless Sadiq Khan can discover the courage to take on the profiteers driving London's housing emergency, his victory in today's mayoral election will mean little to the city's renters. The housing emergency in London is bleak. Private renters in London now pay an average of 35 percent of their income on rent, around two and a half times the equivalent figure for 1980. Rough sleeping in the capital has risen by a massive 32 percent in the last year, the highest of any region and around one in fifty Londoners are trapped in temporary accommodation. Meanwhile, according to one report, the majori ..read more