I bet Hunt's looking forward to reading today's papers:

It seems that over the course of Cable & Hunt's periods in charge, the handling of the Sky deal has been impartial and even handed - on average

He shouldn't, but the weight of e-mails relating to Hunt have allowed him to get away relatively unscathed - for the moment at least. Murdoch dropped him right in it late on yesterday.

Uncle Rupe today. Strap in.

I honestly think the muck is gunna hit the fan today.
Rupert has no scruples, I he thinks he can save himself by sellling everyone else down the river he will of that I have no doubt.
Hunt fighting for his job is just the start IMHO.

I'm waiting for Rebecca Wade to finally face criminal charges, I reckon she'll sing louder than Tommaso Buscetta and nobody involved will be safe.

This is also very true.
In all honesty 'Call me Dave' has made the biggest mistake of his political career creating the Leveson enquiry and making it open for the public to view (I understand he didn't have much of a choice but still).
Big heads will roll still of that I have no doubt.

You can see either something hitting the fan or more likely a whitewash coming on here.

JM gave a warning shot to the government yesterday. I forsee political pressure being brought to bear on the enquiry rather than too much pressure on the Murdochs. If pressure is brought to bear on the Murdochs / News Corp, the government may well fall.

What is incredible to me is how JM seems to struggle to recall key, seemingly significant facts which may shed him / the company in a negative light but has an astonishing memory for detail of seemingly less important facts which allow former employees, etc to apparently be stitched up. I am guessing his dad may have similar memory deficiences / clarity, especially clarity should the politicians have not played ball.

I doubt this. The inquiry has taken on a momentum of it's own now. Leveson and the undoubted star of the show so far, Robert Jay, have shown that they can be pretty single-minded and any pressure from above will look even worse for the government than.. y'know... all that other stuff.

Yesterday proved that a whitewash wasn't going to happen.
Hunt is central to the olympic scheme if it was going to get whitewashed it would have started yesterday.

Fascinating viewing though isn't it.

Although let's not fall into the trap of suddenly believing everything Howling Mad and his son say just because it's nice to do so.

Look who's just turned up:

If Mr Jay keeps on laying into him as he is Murdock is going to take the gloves off eventually.

His defence is that he didn't give News Corp the information but one of his aids did and this was all agreed and so it was OK.

Three problems with this. First a minister is responsible for his aids actions. Secondly this led to News Corp getting the information often before parliament did. Thirdly why was it being given at all? News Corp seem pretty happy with what they were being told so the idea by whatever mechanism they were given this information, this meant his office was acting impartially is a joke.

WTF is he still in a job?

Have they said how they got these e-mails, why they have suddenly emerged?

He'd better hope that Wendi doesn't take her gloves off

The monkey's gone, how soon before the organ grinder follows him?

[iAdam Smith, Jeremy Hunt's special adviser and News Corporation's key contact in his office, has resigned. Here's his resignation statement in full.


"While it was part of my role to keep News Corporation informed throughout the BskyB bid process, the content and extent of my contact was done without authorisation from the Secretary of State. I do not recognise all of what Fred Michel said, but nonetheless I appreciate that my activities at times went too far and have, taken together, created the perception that News Corporation had too close a relationship with the department, contrary to the clear requirements set out by Jeremy Hunt and the permanent secretary that this needed to be a fair and scrupulous process. Whilst I firmly believe that the process was in fact conducted scrupulously fairly, as a result of my activities it is only right for me to step down as special adviser to Jeremy Hunt."[/i

As always, what is not said is more interesting. Without authorisation, perhaps. Without knowledge..??

I think that's what they call "taking one for the team". In the best tradition of public school fags taking a beasting for the Prefect.

On 5 Live this morning (it was early), they seemed to be saying that Hunt had been advised not to meet Murdoch because of the links to the decision making process, but spoke to him on the phone instead, [uon the same day[/u.

If there is any truth in that, they all need to clear out on the grounds of being utterly utterly thick

So Private Eye's "I-Sky", is all made up?

Howling Mad did start the day by saying should take his own tweets too seriously. So perhaps this can be extended to everything else – including his apparent inability to remember loads of things (which James seems to have inherited on the basis of yesterday's performance)?

Doublespeak, I think it's called.

For Hunt to hide behind his aide is pathetic. This is the way politicians in general work - by putting a short distance between themselves and what they do or say. Hunt must go and must go straight away. Whoever appoined him the Sky case knowing his previously voiced support for them must go too. We need a "new kind of politics" were people in control take responsibility not try to pass the buck to their juniors.