The Guardian, Andrew Sparrow, 30/4/2008

Ian Hargreaves, a former editor of the Independent and the New Statesman, is to take charge of communications at the Foreign Office, it was announced today.

He will join the department as strategic communications director on secondment from Ofcom, where he is a senior partner and board member responsible for the communications watchdog's international activities.

The Foreign Office said he was "one of the UK's leading professional communicators" and he would be "helping the FCO to develop its global campaigning skills and to broaden the debate on foreign policy to a wider public in the UK and abroad".

As well as editing the Independent and the New Statesman, Hargreaves has been deputy editor of the Financial Times and director of news and current affairs at the BBC.

Hargreaves will replace Lucian Hudson, the current director of communications at the Foreign Office, who is moving to another post in the department.