So the fightback begins, and not just from Hunt, who quite fairly wants his day in court. The statement he put out last night claimed some of the information was inaccurate and it later emerged the the Permanent Secretary at Culture had given permission for Hunt SpAd Adam Smith to hand hold BSkyB through the bid. Guido doubts that permission would have extended to accurate pre-parliament tip-offs though…

The other man kicking back is the spinmeister Fred Michel who has given a less than subtle threat via Iain Martin:

“If a diary of all Fred Michel’s meetings with senior government figures and MPs was to be published at some point, then a lot of well-placed people in the three main parties would feature. Oh, and he’s a neighbour and close friend of Nick Clegg. This could get even messier.”

By the end of Rupert Murdoch’s testimony today we could all be talking about much more than Hunt…