The early part of the session is focussing on late 2010 when Vince Cable wa still handling the BSkyB bid by News Corp. Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, says he cancelled a meeting with News Corp because he didn’t want to get entangled in a quasi-judicial decision being handled by another Minister. But, he argues, it was then OK to place a mobile call to James Murdoch to talk about the bid. “I just heard Mr Murdoch out and heard what he had to say about what was on his mind,” he said.
Mr Hunt is using very Leveson-ian circumlocutory language as he recalls how he felt about the way Dr Cable was handling the bid. “I may have been frustrated, I was worried about a bid in my sector that could mean 1000s more jobs could be created and the main protagonist was concenred about the process they had to go through. I may well have been worried.”
He says he thought Dr Cable’s decision to refer the takeover to OfCom was “inconsistent” with Tory philosophy to back the free market, and companies which take risks.
“I was sympathetic to the bid” rather than supportive, Mr Hunt says. “Apart from informing the Prime Minister of my views, I wasn’t actually doing anything about it.
The culture secretary said he would not have sent the text had he known he was going to get the role.
He rejected the idea, however, that he should have told government lawyers considering whether to appoint him that he had made a private statement showing bias towards News Corp’s proposal to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting.
Mr Hunt is fighting for his political life on Thursday at the Leveson inquiry, where he is facing intense questioning on whether he was too close and too sympathetic to the Murdoch media group.
A damaging series of revelations centred on Mr Hunt’s behaviour on one dramatic day just before Christmas 2010.
On December 21 that year, the European Commission, which could have blocked the £8.3bn proposal on competition grounds, said it would not do so.
At the time, only Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, could have placed obstructions in its way after Vince Cable, the business secretary with legal responsibility for overseeing the process, asked it to consider plurality issues.
Mr Hunt’s text message, sent that morning to Mr Murdoch read: “Congratulations on Brussels. Only Ofcom to go.”
Hours later, the BBC revealed that Mr Cable had shown apparent bias against News Corp by telling undercover reporters posing as constituents that he had “declared war against [Rupert] Murdoch” over the proposed bid and expected to win.
Mr Hunt heard about this mid-afternoon on December 21, he told the inquiry. Almost immediately, at 4pm, he had received a phone call from a furious James Murdoch who told him Mr Cable’s words showed “acute bias” and called into question the whole regulatory process.
The culture secretary texted George Osborne, the chancellor, at 4.08 saying he was concerned that Mr Cable’s indiscretion meant that he was “seriously worried we are going to screw this up”.
Robert Jay QC questioned Mr Hunt closely over his “only Ofcom to go” text. He asked whether – with government lawyers deciding at that moment to strip Mr Cable of his authority – he should have told them of his favourable view of the bid.
Mr Hunt is using very Leveson-ian circumlocutory language as he recalls how he felt about the way Dr Cable was handling the bid. “I may have been frustrated, I was worried about a bid in my sector that could mean 1000s more jobs could be created and the main protagonist was concenred about the process they had to go through. I may well have been worried.”
He says he thought Dr Cable’s decision to refer the takeover to OfCom was “inconsistent” with Tory philosophy to back the free market, and companies which take risks.
“I was sympathetic to the bid” rather than supportive, Mr Hunt says. “Apart from informing the Prime Minister of my views, I wasn’t actually doing anything about it.
The culture secretary said he would not have sent the text had he known he was going to get the role.
He rejected the idea, however, that he should have told government lawyers considering whether to appoint him that he had made a private statement showing bias towards News Corp’s proposal to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting.
Mr Hunt is fighting for his political life on Thursday at the Leveson inquiry, where he is facing intense questioning on whether he was too close and too sympathetic to the Murdoch media group.
A damaging series of revelations centred on Mr Hunt’s behaviour on one dramatic day just before Christmas 2010.
On December 21 that year, the European Commission, which could have blocked the £8.3bn proposal on competition grounds, said it would not do so.
At the time, only Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, could have placed obstructions in its way after Vince Cable, the business secretary with legal responsibility for overseeing the process, asked it to consider plurality issues.
Mr Hunt’s text message, sent that morning to Mr Murdoch read: “Congratulations on Brussels. Only Ofcom to go.”
Hours later, the BBC revealed that Mr Cable had shown apparent bias against News Corp by telling undercover reporters posing as constituents that he had “declared war against [Rupert] Murdoch” over the proposed bid and expected to win.
Mr Hunt heard about this mid-afternoon on December 21, he told the inquiry. Almost immediately, at 4pm, he had received a phone call from a furious James Murdoch who told him Mr Cable’s words showed “acute bias” and called into question the whole regulatory process.
The culture secretary texted George Osborne, the chancellor, at 4.08 saying he was concerned that Mr Cable’s indiscretion meant that he was “seriously worried we are going to screw this up”.
Robert Jay QC questioned Mr Hunt closely over his “only Ofcom to go” text. He asked whether – with government lawyers deciding at that moment to strip Mr Cable of his authority – he should have told them of his favourable view of the bid.
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