COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt secretly backed News Corporation's bid to take over BSkyB and leaked inside information to the media giant, the Leveson Inquiry heard today.



News Corp's director of public affairs, Frederic Michel, sent a series of emails to James Murdoch and other executives revealing Mr Hunt's thoughts about the progress of the controversial takeover plans.

In one message Mr Michel detailed what the Culture Secretary would say to Parliament the next day, noting that it was "absolutely illegal" for him to obtain the information.

Another email, dating from January last year, reported Mr Hunt's belief that it would be "game over" for opponents of the BSkyB takeover once plans to spin off Sky News into a separately listed company were publicly announced.

"He said we would get there at the end, and he shared our objectives," Mr Michel noted.

The revelations led to a flurry of wagers that Mr Hunt would leave the Cabinet, and bookmakers William Hill, Ladbrokes and Paddy Power all suspended betting on him resigning.

David Cameron's official spokesman told reporters that the Prime Minister continued to have full confidence in Mr Hunt following the claims.

Asked whether David Cameron still had full confidence in Mr Hunt, the Prime Minister's official spokesman told reporters at a regular Westminster briefing: "Yes."

The spokesman said that Mr Cameron and Mr Hunt were both present at this morning's Cabinet meeting, and he was not aware of them speaking to one another since the Culture Secretary's contacts with Mr Murdoch were raised at the Leveson Inquiry.

The spokesman added: "I am not going to be commenting on the Leveson Inquiry. It is a judicial inquiry and we have made clear throughout that we won't be providing a running commentary on it. That remains the case."

The spokesman said he was not aware whether Mr Hunt would be called to give evidence to the inquiry, but agreed it was a "reasonable assumption".

Mr Cameron is also expected to be called, but no date has yet been fixed.

49% think Hunt should quit: survey



Nearly half of the population believe embattled Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt should resign, a poll has indicated.

The research found just 16% of voters think the Secretary of State should remain in post while 49% want him to quit over his links with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

The ComRes poll for ITV News at Ten also found three out of five voters want an independent probe into whether Mr Hunt was involved in the passing of information to News Corp during its bid for BSkyB.

It comes after David Cameron again rejected Labour demands for an inquiry when he was forced to answer an urgent question on the row in the House of Commons.

Labour leader Ed Miliband told MPs that Mr Cameron was "defending the indefensible", after the exposure by the Leveson Inquiry of emails which showed that a News Corp lobbyist was passed advance information about a sensitive parliamentary statement by Mr Hunt's special adviser Adam Smith.

Mr Smith quit, admitting he "went too far" in his contacts with Fred Michel, but Mr Cameron made clear that he remains determined to hang on to his Culture Secretary, who sat beside him on the Government front bench.

He said he believed Mr Hunt "acted fairly and impartially and in line with the advice of his permanent secretary", adding: "I have seen no evidence to suggest that, in handling this issue, the Secretary of State acted at any stage in a way that was contrary to the ministerial code."

He accused Labour of playing "one-sided party politics" with the issue, and repeated his denial that he had made a "grand bargain" with News Corp to allow it to take control of BSkyB in return for the support of its newspapers - something he said he would deny on oath if required to when he appears before Leveson.

But Mr Miliband claimed Mr Hunt had breached three clauses of the code and repeated Labour's demand for Mr Cameron to refer the issue to his independent adviser on ministerial conduct Sir Alex Allan. "The Prime Minister is defending the indefensible and he knows it," Mr Miliband said.

Mr Cameron dismissed the attack as "weak and wrong", adding: "Endlessly questioning the integrity of someone when you don't have the evidence is bad judgment, rotten politics and plain wrong."