Spinning in a different direction

We suspect that one or two older Labour hands in Swansea will have mixed feelings about yesterday’s news that Ed Miliband is to appoint Bob Roberts as his director of communications.

We’re told that Roberts, who is political editor of the Daily Mirror, was not always so leftwards leaning in his outlook. Indeed, as a junior reporter on the South Wales Evening Post some time ago, he is said to have showed remarkable enthusiasm for emulating those of his senior colleagues who regarded the Northcliffe anti-Labour stance as a personal calling.

Yet we accept that people can change with the times – and events.