Where will Roger Alton take the Independent?

The appointment of Roger Alton, former editor of the Observer newspaper, to be editor of the Independent, has raised eyebrows. How will his enthusiasm for New Labour and his support for the invasion of Iraq sit with the left-leaning journalists of the Indie, including their star Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, champion of the Palestinian cause and staunch critic of the war in Iraq, who warned back in 2003 that the West was "about to bring total disaster upon its own head"?

The current Indie editor, Simon Kelner, who is moving upstairs, was proud to be a thorn in Labour's side. He framed and displayed the following letter from Alastair Campbell in his loo: "Dear Simon, Please could you mix some water with the bile that your leader writers seem to have been drinking recently. Yours ever, Alastair."

After Tony Blair singled out the 'viewspaper' for its lack of balance during a critique of the media towards the end of his tenure in power, Kelner responded in print: "What clearly rankles with Mr Blair is not that we campaign vociferously on certain issues, but that he doesn't agree with our stance".

Alton, on the other hand, was criticised for political inexperience after the Observer supported Blair's decision to topple Saddam Hussein. In his recent book Flat Earth News, Nick Davies alleged that Alton had let the friendship between the Observer's news editor, Kamal Ahmed, and Campbell influence his paper's uncritical stance on Iraq.

Interviewed by the Independent in November 2006, Alton was unapologetic: "I know lots of people disagree but I can't see that the world would be a better place with Saddam Hussein in power."

In his first interview about his new posting, Alton told the Guardian on Thursday that under him the Independent will be neither left-wing nor right-wing. "Left and right are effectively meaningless terms now, " he said. "I wouldn't define myself by those terms and I don't think a newspaper should either."

He added that he hoped to add "a bit more luxury" and "a sense of specialness". Indie staffers are still puzzling over what exactly that means. Are the paper's famous 'single-issue' front pages, tackling climate change, war and other great issues of our time, on the way out?