'Minister for Murdoch' spends 6 hours on the ropes

A protester dressed as Rupert Murdoch, right, holds a puppet of Jeremy Hunt. Photo / AP.

The Leveson Inquiry became a tribunal on the political future of Jeremy Hunt yesterday. During six hours of questioning, the Culture Secretary was challenged on texts and emails to News Corp and to James Murdoch that showed he was straining the rules on what he should and shouldn't do as the minister in charge of the controversial BSkyB takeover.

Prime Minister David Cameron refused to order an inquiry into whether Hunt broke Britain's Ministerial Code. However his evidence gave an insight into what was happening behind the scenes.

The 'minister for Murdoch'

Jeremy Hunt was Culture Secretary, but his actions during the lengthy BSkyB bid often made him sound like the Cabinet's Minister for Murdoch.

When Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, decided to refer the BSkyB bid to the regulator, Ofcom, Hunt sent a memo to No 10 delivering the precise reaction of James Murdoch. He told the Prime Minister that the regulator wouldn't give News Corp a fair hearing, that they might take legal action, and that all the Murdoch empire wanted to do was deliver a vast "new media" operation that would create jobs. "Isn't that what all media companies have to do ultimately?", he argued.

George Osborne's involvement

When Hunt took over as the judge of the BSkyB bid from Cable in December 2010, he contacted both George Osborne at the Treasury and James Murdoch to pass on the news. He told the Chancellor he was "still seriously worried we are going to screw this up", and passed on Murdoch's view that Cable's "bias" was still being felt.

Osborne then appears to have implied his new role had been dreamt up by himself and the PM: "I hope you like the solution," he wrote. When the bid was not blocked by the EU, Hunt texted James Murdoch offering his congratulations: "Great and congrats on Brussels. Just Ofcom to go!"

The meeting that never was

Hunt came across as a "cheerleader" for News Corp. In the Culture Secretary, Rupert and James Murdoch knew the bid for total control of BSkyB was in "sympathetic" hands. The Inquiry learned that Hunt attempted to call a meeting on the bid which Cameron, Nick Clegg and Cable were supposed to attend.

Cable was making the quasi-judicial call on the bid; Hunt's department was supposed to be mere observers. But these rules were being ignored by Hunt. The meeting never took place, but looking back, the Culture Secretary told the inquiry he got his early attempts to influence Cable wrong.

News Corp's lobbying offensive

At Hunt's side during his time in opposition and into government was his special adviser, Adam Smith. His role was to be Hunt's eyes and ears, and act as his voice when needed. Hunt described his qualities to the inquiry: loyal, intelligent, hard-working, politically shrewd, informed.

But Hunt also claimed to be unaware of the pressures that News Corp's senior lobbyist, Fred Michel, was putting his aide under. He told the inquiry of the scale of "the barrage": 35 texts over two days (542 in total), plus 140 telephone calls (a minimum of five a day, including weekends).

Smith had never been warned of the new legal parameters when his boss took over the decision on the bid. Hunt said: "I was totally shocked when I discovered that level of contact and I think that explains why he slipped into inappropriate language."

How hacking changed everything

Hunt said he eventually sought legal advice on the relevance of phone hacking to the bid, as he felt it threw up new issues of trust. After the Milly Dowler revelations in July 2011, phone hacking and the bid became inextricably linked. Hunt sent a memo to No 10 warning of "corporate governance issues" and his worries about News Corp's ability to pass the "fit and proper" ownership test required in law.

- Independent