Painful watching for team Hunt this morning as News Corp lobbyist Fred Michel took a battering from Mr Jay QC at the Leveson Inquiry. He’s coughed that the impression he was given was that Adam Smith was talking on behalf of Hunt and thus feedback was given to News Corp from the Secretary of State, via Hunt’s SpAd’s personal email address.

He also confirmed he was in text contact with Hunt – painful extracts were read out in court and the whole batch are due to be published today. It seems former Hunt SpAd Adam Smith will try to paint Michel as a fantasist, but the paper trail is not looking good…

UPDATE:

Michel to Hunt: "You were great at commons today". Hunt reply: "Merci, large drink tonight" #Leveson

— Ian Katz (@iankatz1000) May 24, 2012

UPDATE: The texts are here.