How does Ed Miliband stop Clegg stealing his thunder?

The Mole is pleased for Ed Miliband that he has managed to add some muscle to his spin team in the shape of Tom Baldwin, a senior Times reporter who is leaving Wapping to be Labour's head of communications. Ed needs all the help he can get.

Baldwin is a tough guy with a good record as a scoop getter - in part because of his close relationship with Blair's head of communications, Alastair Campbell. Which means Baldwin will know all about feeding Ed-friendly scoops to the right people, and stopping Ed-unfriendly ones getting into the wrong hands.

But Baldwin has one big problem to solve in terms of raising Ed Miliband's public profile - and I don't mean getting the miserable bugger to smile occasionally. The problem is one that none of his predecessors in the age of spin has had to contend with.

It is quite simply that, with a coalition government to cover, the political correspondents already have two key players to follow - David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Too many of the column inches and too much of the airtime that would have gone to the genuine leader of the Opposition is going to the opposition leader within the government - ie the deputy prime minister.

Let's face it, Blair's deputy, John Prescott, only got news coverage if he punched someone's lights out. Clegg just has to open his mouth and he's guaranteed headlines.

Today's Financial Times interview with Clegg is a perfect example of Baldwin's dilemma.

Clegg used the interview to warn the banks that this government will not sit idly by while they fork out massive bonuses to their staff and yet fail to lend to small businesses.

Reading between the lines, of course, what Clegg was actually doing was sending a thinly veiled message to Cameron that while the Lib Dems have been prepared to perform a U-turn on tuition fees for the sake of partaking in government, they can't afford to break another election pledge just yet - the one about keeping those evil bankers in their place.

The fragility of the Clegg-Cameron relationship is, of course, something Labour are happy to see exposed regularly. But the result this morning was Clegg got the headlines for attacking bankers - not Miliband.

Baldwin may be "a cross between Alastair Campbell, Hunter S Thompson and Rasputin" as Dan Hodges put it on the New Statesman's blog this week, but he has his work cut out. ·