In recent years our picture archive has come into its own since most of the old Fleet Street titles disposed of their archives years ago. When the New Statesman was taken over by millionaire MP Geoffrey Robinson and decamped to Victoria one eagle-eyed ex-hack spotted a pile of original Vicky cartoons discarded in a skip. Such a casual approach to history may explain why so much contemporary journalism is distinctly shallow and ephemeral.

Recently I chanced upon a yellowing sliver of newsprint. “Tribune takes over from Eton in the Cabinet”, read the banner headline. The page had been printed as Harold Wilson prepared to hold his first Cabinet meeting following Labour's 1964 election victory. It came replete with photographs of Tribunites Barbara Castle, Michael Foot and Dick Crossman amongst others. It occurred to me that we could have produced a similar front page to mark Labour's or rather “New” Labour's 1997 landslide. Except that the Tories' Eton could have become Harrow, and that the Tribune Group members T. Blair, G. Brown, J. Straw and D. Blunkett – amongst others – might not have been so keen to advertise their earlier political proclivities. Perversely the paper that gave its name to the parliamentary group has not only survived the political odyssey to the Right taken by many of its leading lights, but the Tribune Group has ceased to function as well. In recent years, freed from the old constraints, the newspaper has enjoyed an almost Samizdat role, acting as whistleblower and Cassandra, altogether carrying an influence beyond its small circulation.

Thorn

In common with the handful of remaining political periodicals, Tribune is at the mercy of a monopoly news trade, lorded over by WH Smith. In recent years, what resources have been available have been fairly successfully invested in bringing in new subscriptions. The Tribune web page is operated by a volunteer in Dundee, thus disproving any charge of Luddism. Not only does it bring in new readers, the web page is a studied exercise in internationalism, bringing e-mails from Buenos Aires to Santander.

I was elected editor by the staff and other luminary board members, Clare Short and Michael Foot, in 1993, despite having absolutely no experience whatsoever. They had got it into their minds (erroneously as it happens) that the detested Peter Mandelson had thrown his support behind the candidate who should have got the job, not least because he had edited a national Sunday newspaper. I soon discovered that being editor was a curious mixture of gathering copy, fund raising and political activism. No Tribune editor could possibly be a plain and simple propagandist for the Labour Party. He, and up until now it has been a succession of “he's”, was, and is, expected to champion socialist values, something many can never understand.

The paper has had a love-hate relationship with the Labour leadership, yet curiously in John Smith, a figure from the traditional Right of the party there were determined efforts, on his part, at what might now be termed “inclusivity”. Periodically, Tribune is wont to rally the troops by launching a signed statement or organising a conference; such events almost without fail cause apoplexy to the dullards in the party hierarchy. I wrote to Smith, more out of courtesy than expectation, inviting him to speak at one such event, and received a hand-written letter saying: “I am sorry that I will not be able to make it, but I hope that you will keep me informed of your policy ideas.” Smith's death heralded “New” Labour triumphant. Suddenly those previously sidelined re-emerged, more confident and more determined to foist their “project” of realignment on a still weak Labour Party. My early dealings with Tony Blair's entourage had filled me with a sense of foreboding. I could see – and understood – that many of these people were in a hurry. Who wouldn't be after eighteen years in the wilderness? But two early events – the duplicity over Tony Blair's campaign for the leadership of the party and the questionable ballot of members over Clause Four of the party's constitution – persuaded me that Tribune's role had to be that of vigilance. For many of these same people took a casual attitude to democracy.

Populism

It later transpired that political correspondents had happily colluded in covering up Mandelson's involvement, knowing full well that Blair had promised his official campaign team, Jack Straw, Mo Mowlam and Peter Kilfoyle, that the deeply distrusted Hartlepool MP had no role whatsoever in it. Anji Hunter also assured me that this was the case. Further inquiries elsewhere brought Mo Mowlam to the telephone, warning of possible legal action against the paper if we were to print what many other journalists already knew, but were refusing to publish. And for the first time, the winning candidate received financial backing from well outside the confines of the Labour movement. There was no attempt to declare the sources.

This unhappy experience was soon followed by the very public defenestration of a left-wing barrister, Liz Davies, who had been selected to stand as Labour's standard bearer in Leeds North East. Earning her right of passage with the Blairites, Clare Short led the very public and disgraceful attacks on Davies at the Labour Party Conference. Then followed Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson's masterful PR stunt of casting out the old Clause Four to widespread media acclaim. There was no intention of entering into a debate with others such as Tribune, who believed that Labour's commitment to common ownership could be rewritten for the 21st century, more a macho desire to excise old demons, as the first step to the creation of a new party. The ballot became a plebiscite, with selected results leaked to The Guardian even before the ballot closed. Even as it did, Tribune's political correspondent, Hugh MacPherson, was curtly informed that no overall figures for the ballot were available. None were ever published. This episode was to mark the beginning of “New” Labour's varied and clumsy attempts to rig successive ballots. It also marked the beginning of a largely underhand campaign to change the nature of the party by stealth.

Chicanery

Tony Blair and “New” Labour's initial success has been to turn a political party of the Left into one of the Centre Right, while for three years taking the “politics out of politics”. Again – and alone – Tribune criticised the relegation of Cabinet government, the reliance on handpicked advisers and the dependence on big business for money for the leaders' blind trusts. With such a huge majority, Blair presided over Camelot, but he could not have done so without the backing of many newspaper editors and political journalists.

I have watched with great interest over the past seven years as many writers and columnists respected for their “independence” have allowed themselves to become mere propagandists. A lack of consistency and principle in government has encouraged a schizophrenic and hypocritical press, with an unerring eye for trivia over substance. The editor of The Sun, David Yelland, may announce one day that it has been “a great privilege to be invited to Chequers”, while the next denouncing Tony Blair as “the most dangerous man in Britain”. Rosie Boycott, the editor of The Express, no doubt under pressure from proprietor Lord Hollick, felt able to block the appointment of the fizzing journalist Paul Routledge for being “off message”, while entertaining the opinions of focus guru Philip Gould at editorial meetings. Newspaper editors change with disturbing regularity, and as with Rebekah Wade of the News of the World their view of political reporting is: (a) it is boring, and (b) if it has to be done, it should be left in the hands of government confidantes masquerading as journalists.

Having watched the process of ingratiation and control, albeit at a distance under Sir Bernard Ingham, I believe that it intensified in the early years of this Government. If Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Philip Gould and Alastair Campbell set out to dumb down politics in order to buy time from The Sun and the Daily Mail, which I believe they did, they set in motion a process of dumbing down elsewhere in the media. Increasingly, politics is reported as soap opera, gossip has escaped from the diary pages where it belongs to misinform what is supposed to inform. The media began by failing to put Tony Blair and his new Government under proper scrutiny, which would have made for a better administration. And now the pack has turned, unwilling to countenance that anything good will come of the Blair administration at all. Tribune may shortly find itself in the lonely and somewhat unusual position of reminding others that this Government does have some achievements to its name. Not that our independence will be compromised for a minute. Hold the front page.