Jeremy Hunt at the Leveson Inquiry: It was harder to follow than Old Norse

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Jeremy Hunt at the Leveson Inquiry: It was harder to follow than Old Norse

June 1st, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Quentin Letts

PUBLISHED:

17:34 EST, 31 May 2012

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UPDATED:

17:38 EST, 31 May 2012

Questions: Jeremy Hunt, who is fighting to save his ministerial career, has a gruelling day of questioning at the Leveson Inquiry on Thursday

Questions: Jeremy Hunt faced a gruelling day of questioning at the Leveson Inquiry on Thursday

Ten o’clock in the morning they started interrogating Jeremy Hunt. It was another six hours and 53 minutes before that funny little chap Robert Jay QC – the one who keeps staring up the camera lens like a nostril doctor – asked the Secretary of State for Culture what he actually thought about press regulation.

The Leveson Inquiry, which was set up to look into journalistic ethics, spent most of yesterday crawling over the minutiae of ministerial emails, special advisers’ ‘point man’ duties and lobbyists’ bragging rights.

Levesonians will argue that such things were linked to politicians’ independence and may have been steered by scurvy journalists. But I hope it is not yet treason to observe that at times this felt more like a Guardian-sponsored prosecution of the Cameron Government than a fact-gathering probe into the way reporters fill their notebooks.

Comrade Jay heaved vast folders in front of his chest. Shoe shop assistants will know the feeling. You open all these boxes. And still you don’t make a sale!

‘Second supplementary bundle SSA small a, page zero-seven-nine-oh-nine,’ murmured Mr Jay, expecting Mr Hunt to have the reference in a trice.

Another moment he was diving for ‘file KRM 18, page PROP zero- one-six-six-seven’, or ‘tab three page one-three-five-seven-three – no, sorry, zero-four-two-four-eight’. Shades of the Radio Four game Mornington Crescent.

Slow: It took 6 hours and 53 minutes for Robert Jay QC to ask Hunt what he actually thought about press regulation

Behind Mr Jay, young laywers sucked their gums appreciatively, all of them equipped with these mountains of paperwork. Acres of Scandinavian woodland have been cleared. Mr Jay’s photocopier must run as hot as a Morris Minor climbing Birdlip Hill.

On the internet, Twitter messages kept pinging up from top brass at The Guardian. Didn’t they have a newspaper to edit?

Mr Hunt, as though in a speed-jigsaw competition, stared hard at the material but had difficulty finding his place. Keep up, boy! He leaned down, stiff-necked, so that his snout was nearer the printed word. Perhaps his eyes were spinning. Perhaps his brain was aching. Mine was. Mr Jay wondered if there was dirty work between Mr Hunt and Rupert Murdoch’s News International. He asked about social contacts between Mr Hunt and a Murdoch lobbyist, Fred Michel.

Mr Hunt explained that Mr Michel’s wife had a baby in the same hospital as his own wife, roughly at the same time. They had met in the ward.

Under pressure: Mr Hunt admitted that he had considered resigning amid the controversy over his department's handling of the BskyB bid

Under pressure: Mr Hunt admitted that he had considered resigning amid the controversy over his department’s handling of the BSkyB bid

Ha! Is there no end to which these devilish PR men will not stoop in order to gain access to a minister?

Mr Jay produced some disclosures about the Chancellor, George Osborne, being involved in the plot. There were references to Vince Cable, Business Secretary – ‘Dr Cable’, everyone at Leveson calls the old booby – and his ‘acute bias’ against News International, as James Murdoch (sprog of Rupe) put it. Mr Hunt’s bias was initially in the other direction but he claimed to have placed it to one side, a noble potter discarding a half-moulded toby jug, once the decision on the Murdoch bid fell his way.

You needed a PhD in Murdoch-Leveson Studies (as an academic discipline it is harder than Old Norse) to follow much of the evidence. Mr Hunt was ultra-cautious at the start, when he was being quizzed about his early attitude to the bid. He and Mr Jay haggled over every phrase and definition.

Concentration: The presented evidence was confusing, and Mr Hunt often lost his place

The Secretary of State later became downcast when he was quizzed about the resignation of his young friend Adam Smith. Almost wet hanky time.

In the middle of the day I had to wander off for an hour to attend a church meeting. I came back and I swear Mr Jay was on the same question – possibly the same sentence – as when I had left.

Mr Jay wondered aloud if media takeover decisions should ‘not be taken by politicians such as you’.

I am sure it was only my overactive fancy that heard the follow-up ‘but should be taken instead by unelected lawyers like me!’