Next week is set to be one of the most gripping yet in the Leveson Inquiry into press standards.<\/p>\n
Monday has been reserved for former prime minister Tony Blair, who will likely be questioned about his close relationship with media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose tabloid the Sun famously switched its long-standing Conservative allegiance to back the Labour party ahead of the 1997 general election.<\/p>\n
Business secretary Vince Cable is scheduled to appear on Wednesday. It is likely he will be quizzed about News Corp’s \u00a38bn bid for the takeover of satellite broadcaster BSkyB, particularly his admission that he had “declared war” on the Murdoch-owned company, which led to his being stripped of responsibility for the bid.<\/p>\n
But the highlight will surely come from Thursday’s sole witness, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is fighting for his political life after the revelation of a November 2010 memo he sent to David Cameron in\u00a0support of News Corp’s \u00a38bn bid for control of the satellite broadcaster one month before he was handed the task of adjudicating the bid.<\/p>\n
In the memo Hunt emphasised to\u00a0Cameron that it would be “totally wrong to cave in” to the bid’s opponents, and that\u00a0Cable’s decision to refer the bid to regulator Ofcom could leave the government “on the wrong side of media policy”.<\/p>\n
The memo has further weakened Hunt’s grip on power, already in doubt after last month’s revelations that his department gave News Corp advance\u00a0feedback of the government\u2019s scrutiny of the BSkyB bid.\u00a0Evidence shown to the Inquiry yesterday during News Corp lobbyist\u00a0Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Michel<\/a>‘s appearance showed over\u00a0than 1000 text messages had been sent between the corporation and Hunt’s department, along with\u00a0191 phone calls and 158 emails.<\/p>\n The Labour party has since upped the volume on its calls for Hunt to resign<\/a>, arguing he was not the “impartial arbiter” he was required to be.<\/p>\n Hunt has maintained he acted properly and within the ministerial code, while\u00a0David Cameron said today he does not regret<\/a> handing the bid to Hunt, stressing he acted “impartially”.<\/p>\n