From The Guardian:
The embattled culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, came under renewed pressure when the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks disclosed an email appearing to show he had sought the company's advice over how Downing Street should respond to the mounting phone-hacking scandal.
The email, which also suggests Hunt sought to avoid a public inquiry into phone hacking, emerged on another day of extraordinary disclosures about the intimacy between Rupert Murdoch's company and government ministers.
The email from News Corporation lobbyist Frédéric Michel written in June 2011 told Brooks that Hunt was poised to make an "extremely helpful" statement about the company's proposed acquisition of BSkyB, saying the takeover would be approved regardless of phone-hacking allegations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Rebekah Brooks admitted under oath today that she and UK Prime Minister were close friends, but said that they never had inappropriate business discussions. It strains credulity that the Culture Secretary would be currying favor with Newscorp without the Prime Minister's direct orders.
I believe Rupert and Rebekah are merely trying to keep Cameron from turning on them. If he plays along and tries to blame Hunt, they have led him to believe he might keep his job. I doubt they care.
(apologies for accidental deletion earlier!)
Please support the soon to be released book by Peter Jukes (a.k.a. Brit), THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF MURDOCH:
http://unbound.co.uk/...
UPDATE 1:
From the comments, our own AnnetteK discovered an important development on UK MP Tom Watson's own blog. This heroic MP has written a letter to the cabinet secretary that accuses Cameron of breaching the ministerial code!:
MEETINGS BETWEEN THE PRIME MINISTER, MEDIA PROPRIETORS, EDITORS AND SENIOR EXECUTIVES
It was reported by Christopher Hope in The Telegraph on 9 May 2012 that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, failed to declare two new meetings with former News International chief Rebekah Brooks, including one just two days after his press aide Andy Coulson quit his role as Director of Communications on 23 January 2011. These two instances do not appear in the official list of meetings published between Mr Cameron, proprietors, editors and senior media executives in July 2011.
It is simply not credible for Downing Street to respond to the 23 January meeting by claiming it was not an official meeting, particularly as it came just two days after Mr Coulson’s resignation. While it is certainly not possible for Downing Street to detail everyone Mr Cameron meets at an event, The Telegraph makes the astonishing allegation that the pair texted each other on their mobile phones to ensure they were not spotted together, and that the release of photographs of this encounter have since been suppressed at Mr Cameron’s request.
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/...
As AnnetteK said in her comment, the whole letter is definitely worth the read.
UPDATE 2:
Also from the comments, BlueStateRedhead has found a devastating article about Rebekah Brooks by the amazing Michael Wolff. A teensy excerpt:
When Jay inquired, Brooks said her promotion was a joint decision by Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch. That she was being moved into this job because she was interested in paywalls, and iPads, and all things digital. This is not quite true on several levels. The decision to promote Brooks came in 2007, before Murdoch had started to think about paywalls, and just as the iPhone was being launched (two years before the iPad).
...
At first, Brooks resisted Jay's suggestion in the hearing that she was central to the Sun's support of Cameron, but then, eventually, came closer to acknowledging her importance in the decision:
"You are driving force?" Pressed Jay.
"No. I was instrumental. Not the driving force," said Brooks.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...