Good innings ensures survival till stumps

[Commentary] If you were a betting man, you would not have wagered a large amount on Jeremy Hunt surviving as culture secretary during the opening hours of the Leveson inquiry.

From the start, the embattled minister looked and sounded like a man who knew he would not be able to explain what was about to become public. When a series of his text messages from December 21, 2010 – the day he was handed responsibility for News Corp’s bid for full control of BSkyB – flashed up on the screen, it became clear why. The real damage came from the release of text messages showing Hunt offering “congratulations” to Murdoch when the BSkyB deal cleared a key European regulatory hurdle on the day he was given a quasi-judicial role overseeing the News Corp bid. Ninety minutes later, when news of the government’s U-turn on the charity tax began to circulate in Court 73, the overriding sentiment was that the culture secretary would not last the day. But, in Leveson as in cricket, a lunch break can make all the difference. Hunt returned to the inquiry more forceful, more animated in the afternoon.