Quote:Ed Miliband to appoint Times and Mirror journalists to media team

Reports that Bob Roberts, political editor of the Mirror, is to become Miliband's director of communications while the Times's Tom Baldwin is on the verge of being appointed the Labour leader's principal media strategist

Hélène Mulholland and Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 December 2010 18.06 GMT

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, today appeared to be on the point of beefing up his media team by appointing the Daily Mirror's political editor and a senior Times journalist.

There were unconfirmed reports today that Bob Roberts, political editor of the Mirror, is to become Miliband's director of communications while the Times's Tom Baldwin is on the verge of being appointed the Labour leader's principal media strategist.

The appointment of Baldwin as a media strategist, which comes three months after Miliband was elected leader, would no doubt appease critics who claim that Miliband's failure to have one person co-ordinating his PR strategy means he is missing chances to make a mark with the public.

Baldwin is expected to give more focus to Miliband's media effort, which was itself in the news recently when his spokeswoman was forced to apologise after accusing the prime minister, David Cameron, of "pimping himself out" in an effort to secure the 2018 football World Cup for England.

Baldwin is close to Labour and worked as a lobby journalist when Alastair Campbell was Tony Blair's spokesman; he was seen as one of Downing Street's favourite journalists during this era.

He hit the headlines in July 2003 when he became one of the first journalists to name David Kelly as Andrew Gilligan's source of information about the dossier into Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. As a result he was summoned as a witness before the Hutton inquiry into Kelly's death.

Baldwin returned to London for a new role as chief reporter last year after a four-year stint as Washington correspondent for the Times.

Greg Dyke, the former BBC director general, wrote a caustic article about Baldwin in 2005, accusing him of having been a "mouthpiece" for Downing Street.

Dyke wrote: "When I was still running the BBC I once asked Robert Thomson, Baldwin's editor at the Times, why he didn't sack Baldwin, as he wasn't an independent journalist at all but a mouthpiece for Downing Street. He replied: 'He gets good stories,' which missed the whole point. The reason that Baldwin got good stories from Downing Street was that he was Campbell's man; he acted as their messenger."

A spokeswoman for Ed Miliband said: "We are not going to respond to any rumours, and any appointments that are going to be made to the team are going to be announced in due course."