The love that New Labour lost: can 'Tribune' pull back from the abyss?

For more than 70 years it has been the cradle of socialist writing, nurturing some of the Left's most brilliant thinkers. Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot were founder members, George Orwell was once literary editor, and ministers ranging from Robin Cook to Jack Straw have been contributors. But the future of Tribune magazine is hanging in the balance following an emergency meeting in which the perilous state of its finances was laid bare.

At a summit a week ago on Friday, editor Chris McLaughlin was forced to ask for a cash handout from the Labour-affiliated unions which own the magazine to keep it afloat until a new business model can be worked out. Its fate will be decided on 18 November at a union committee meeting.

It is not the first time Tribune, published weekly in black and white from an attic in Hampstead, has been plunged into crisis. Twenty years ago closure was narrowly avoided thanks to a front page which clamoured "Don't let this be the last issue of Tribune". Changing from a newspaper to a magazine did little to secure its position in 2001, and it struggled on until then editor Mark Seddon negotiated a rescue package under which the unions took over in 2004.

In its heyday, after the Labour election landslide of 1945, Tribune boasted a circulation of 40,000. A typical week might have seen Michael Foot denouncing Ernest Bevin's pro-US foreign policy, or Barbara Castle arguing for decolonisation. Major political decisions within the Labour party would be thrashed out in its pages and the magazine became a training ground for left-leaning politicians and journalists. But since the Sixties the readership has dwindled to a mere 3,000, although the website, relaunched last year, draws a further 2,500 unique users per week.

So what happened? "The Left has always been bad at promoting itself through journalism – they just don't put the investment in," says Seddon. "This is a great lost opportunity for the unions. If they really want to get people thinking about the issues they've been discussing at conference, they need something like Tribune. What could be better? But it means putting some serious money into it."

Or perhaps the product itself is the problem. Is there still an appetite for unapologetically left-wing campaign journalism? McLaughlin, a former political editor at the Sunday Mirror, believes there is, pointing to successful pilot promotions in university campuses. The difficulty has been in reaching the right audience. "The flight of membership from the Labour party has taken away our easily reachable market," he says. "And the fragmentation of the party has left us without a core base." Tribune resisted the birth of New Labour in the 1990s, and has kept up its attack on the Government ever since, especially over the invasion of Iraq. But even before the New Labour project, Tribune prided itself on being a thorn in the side of the party.

Although Gordon Brown has been a regular contributor, Tribune has been consistently critical of his policies, especially on private finance initiatives and Iraq. But it has resisted calling for his departure. "If you wanted to define us by who we would back, it would be Jon Cruddas," says McLaughlin. "He is a good communicator, and in terms of policies he is in a place where we would like to see the party heading."

When McLaughlin became editor in 2004, operational losses were running at £18,000 per month, but thanks to what he calls "better management practice", that is down to £3,000. He has streamlined the operation by "weeding out flaws in the distribution system", and, impressively, circulation has been rising. "I tease my colleagues in the lobby about it," he says, referring to the near-universal decline in circulation figures across the press. "But I don't get the sense that it's been to do with any great political shift out there."

McLaughlin wants to see Tribune continue as a paid-for weekly, and believes he has a business strategy that could see Tribune break even. "It will be based on the promotional campaign, development of the website and broadening of the readership base – those are the three core elements," he says.

If the unions decide to adopt his strategy, they will have to continue stumping up the cash, although, relative to their revenues, the cost of keeping Tribune going is small. Producing 49 issues per year costs £270,000, or £22,000 per month. Advertising revenue used to account for about £7,500 per month, but that has fallen sharply since May, when Boris Johnson replaced Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London. Under Livingstone, the Greater London Authority and the Mayor's office ran weekly ads in Tribune, and the loss of these two advertisers has left Tribune extraordinarily thin on ads: an August edition was entirely ad-free.

One rescue option would be to scrap the print edition and funnel funds into the website. The online relaunch boosted traffic and Tribune's international audience is growing. "We're huge in Holland and New Zealand," says McLaughlin – "in relative terms, that is." But going entirely online would be difficult: Tribune relies heavily on subscriptions that make up 85 per cent of sales. Another possibility could be to follow Press Gazette, the trade journal, which recently switched from weekly to monthly while boosting web activity.

There has been talk of the unions selling the business to a private buyer, although, apart from the name, there isn't much to sell. "We don't have any assets except for George Orwell's desk, and his stapler, which I must have sold about 50 times," says McLaughlin. The magazine has four full-time staff and three part-timers, and numbers Ed Balls, Ian Aitken and Paul Routledge as contributors. Michael Foot is still an honourary board member, and despite his poor health rings in once a month "to give us a boost".

The worst of all worlds would see Tribune close, which McLaughlin concedes is a real possibility. "Nobody wants to be the one to close Tribune," he says. "I firmly believe it is in a better shape to begin breaking even now than it has been in a long time."