Appointing two hard-nosed national newspaper journalists to the top posts of chief strategist and media spokesman is the clearest indication that Ed Miliband believes the quickest route to establishing his authority in the Labour Party is by exploiting the news media.
Tony Blair and David Cameron both relied on experienced newshounds – Alastair Campbell (Daily Mirror) and Andy Coulson (News of the World) – to manage their relationship with journalists. Their tactics paid off with favourable news coverage; both Blair and Cameron went on to win on polling day. Ed Miliband’s faltering start as Labour Party leader has necessitated some rapid appointments and his choice of two newspaper journalists – Tom Baldwin (ex-The Times) and Bob Roberts (ex-Daily Mirror) – is a tried and tested formula. But instead of playing it safe, Miliband could have taken a risk and gone for specialists with a better grasp of the rapidly changing world of communications. Online insurgencies are likely to become one of the biggest threats to political parties seeking to influence and control the news agenda. Students attending the London protests against tuition fees were co-ordinated largely by messages on social networking sites and mobile phones; computer hackers supporting the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange provided another demonstration of the power of the internet as a campaigning tool. David Cameron, too, has personal experience of the uncontrolled political warfare which can be conducted via the internet. The most mocked image of the 2010 general election was the airbrushed poster of Cameron which became a target for online graffiti artists and spawned a website devoted to spoof posters. Instead of tapping the burgeoning world of online journalism and political blogging, Miliband has chosen two journalists well versed in the world of agenda-setting via the national press. Tom Baldwin, a former chief reporter, becomes Miliband’s director of strategy and communications, and Bob Roberts, a former political editor, becomes director of news; Baldwin will have a behind-the-scenes role whereas Roberts will be Miliband’s chief spokesman and deal directly with political correspondents. Over the years both journalists have been beneficiaries of the Blair/Brown infighting and the party’s addiction to the use of negative briefings to score points against each other. Miliband’s greatest failing has been his inability to halt the flow of well-placed anonymous quotes from party insiders which have continued the New Labour nightmare with the psycho-drama of the ‘David and Ed’ feud.Baldwin made his name during the witch hunt to expose the weapons inspector Dr David Kelly by apparently becoming a mouthpiece for Alastair Campbell. Leaked stories under Baldwin’s by-line in The Times dictated the pace for the rest of the news media; he even developed the uncanny knack of reproducing the very phrases which Campbell had simultaneously recorded in his own diary. When challenged at the Hutton Inquiry to explain how this might have happened Campbell denied he gave Baldwin information about Kelly’s status but Blair’s director of communications was forced to admit that he continued to talk to ‘editors and senior journalists’ although the Prime Minister had asked him to stand back from his confrontation with the BBC and row over Andrew Gilligan’s reports of Kelly’s secret briefings. If Baldwin imagines he can follow Campbell’s example and become a trader of leaks and tip-offs, he might end up becoming the ‘story of the day’ and terminating his career as a spin doctor far faster than he might like. Miliband’s priority is stemming the flow of anonymous quotes; he needs his media strategists to help work out the line on the story of the day and then ensure that this is respected by the party. Messrs Baldwin and Roberts will no doubt face every possible conceivable inducement from their former colleagues in the lobby at Westminster anxious to ensure that they match Alastair Campbell’s repertoire of black arts in media manipulation. Unless he is careful, Miliband could well end up repeating the divisions of the Blair/Brown years. END