Jeremy hunt

Aside from Boris's exhortations to George Osborne, one of the most ear-catching lines of the day has been uttered by Jeremy Hunt. "I think the relationships between politicians and the media got too cosy," said the culture secretary on Radio 5 this morning. He's certainly not the first to make the point, but he is one of the most prominent Conservatives to do so. The words, I suspect, were chosen to cool the heat rising from yesterday's lists of meetings between ministers and media organisations. Hunt himself, it was revealed, has met seven times with News Corp types since the general election. Hunt's admission also opens the prospect of a fevered struggle between the Tories and the Lib Dems to appear less cosy with the media establishment.

Jeremy Hunt’s statement today confirmed that News Corps’ takeover bid for BSkyB was being referred to the Competition Commission. But the questions afterwards were dominated by Labour questions about Andy Coulson’s appointment. Hunt could not answer whether or not Coulson had been positively vetted. Nor, could he say when Cameron and Coulson last spoke. Indeed, Hunt initially claimed Cameron had not spoken to his former director of communications since Coulson stepped down, before quickly correcting himself. The Culture Secretary did do a decent job of sounding reasonable and bemoaning Labour’s tone. But without a proper line on Coulson, he was left floundering. There were two other things worth noting from the session.

Gosh, this phone hacking scandal is moving at a pace. Fresh from the wire comes news that even the government is reviewing its advertising contracts with the News of the World; signs that Jeremy Hunt won't budge on the BSkyB deal; as well as further interventions by everyone from Ed Miliband to Boris Johnson. Overarching all that, though, are the hardening differences of opinion between the Tories and the Lib Dems. The yellow half of the coalition is going further and further in pushing for both an enforced pause to the BSkyB deal and a judge-led inquiry into the whole mess. Both Lord Oakeshott and Simon Hughes have called for the former. Nick Clegg's email to party members last night called for the latter, as did Chris Huhne on the Today Programme earlier.

The big society is crossing swords with the localism agenda in Brent, north London. You may recall the Friends of Kensal Rise Library, a voluntary group that was being frustrated by Labour-led Brent Council. They are one of six community organisations in the borough who are unsuccessfully resisting the council’s decision to close 6 libraries. The council is adamant that the campaigners cannot succeed unless they raise sufficient funds independent of the council; the council leader, Labour’s Ann John, told the Kilburn Times: ‘If they can come up with a plan at no cost to the council then we will listen.

The decision on News Corp's take-over of BSkyB has thrust Jeremy Hunt into the spotlight. The culture secretary is many Tories' bet to be the next leader of the party. Hunt is ambitious even by political standards: during the Brown bounce he canvassed opinion as to whether he should stand in the Tory leadership contest that would follow an election defeat, and has a John Major like ability to make factions in the party feel like he is one of them. Add to this, a good television manner and one can see why people think he'll go far. One of the odd things about politics is that there is no heir apparent to Cameron in the Tory party. Hague used to be considered the obvious emergency replacement. But that is no longer true.

Talk about a Christmas miracle: Ed Miliband has set about the task of Opposition with ruthless efficiency today. As both Guido and Nicholas Watt have noted, the Labour leader is all across the broadcast news this afternoon, after upping the heat on Vince Cable and the coalition. His party's attack comes in the form of a letter sent by the shadow business secretary, John Denham, to the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O'Donnell. It asks, mischieveously, whether Vince Cable has broken the ministerial code by promising to wage war against Rupert Murdoch, and whether Jeremy Hunt is impartial enough to step into the breach. And while nothing is likely to come of these exhortations, they have already done their work in terms of grabbing Labour, and Miliband, some rare attention.

There we have it. After all the frenzy in Westminster this afternoon, Vince Cable is simply staying put as Business Secretary. But he does not stand unchastised. All his responsibilities for media competition – and that includes telecoms and digital, as well as television and print – will be transferred over to Jeremy Hunt. Which means that Cable's war against Rupert Murdoch has ended before Christmas. At least he still has his nuclear option, I suppose. Many will say that Cable got off lightly – and they'd be right. Putting aside the Business Secretary's suitability to arbitrate over the Murdoch case, his judgement has been stripped and revealed as faulty today. Yes, he fell prey to journalists pretending to be something they weren't.

The Big Society never really went away as a theme, but it certainly became a less insistent catchphrase after the general election. The Tories were no doubt stung by the ambiguous response their invitation to government, and felt that the early days of coalition government were not an opportune moment to reheat their central election message. Months went by where the words "big" and "society" barely made any contact at all. That changed with David Cameron's conference speech, of course. And, since then, the Big Society has been back, loud and proud. Only this week, Philip Hammond was talking about a "Big Society approach" to dealing with the snow. Nick Clegg has taken to opening "big society classrooms".