Michael Gove is on fine form today:

“Armando Iannucci, David Baddiel, Michael McIntyre, Jack Whitehall, Miles Jupp, Armstrong from Armstrong and Miller and Mitchell from Mitchell and Webb were all privately educated. 2010’s Mercury Music Prize was a battle between privately educated Laura Marling and privately-educated Marcus Mumford. And from Chris Martin of Coldplay to Tom Chaplin of Keane – popular music is populated by public school boys. Indeed when Keane were playing last Sunday on the Andrew Marr show everyone in that studio – the band, the presenter and the other guests – Lib Dem peer Matthew Oakeshott, Radio 3 Presenter Clemency Burton-Hill and Sarah Sands, editor of the London Evening Standard – were all privately educated. 

Indeed it’s in the media that the public school stranglehold is strongest. The Chairman of the BBC and its Director-General are public school boys. And it’s not just the Evening Standard which has a privately-educated editor. My old paper The Times is edited by an old boy of St Pauls and its sister paper the Sunday Times by an old Bedfordian. The new editor of the Mail on Sunday is an old Etonian, the editor of the Financial Times is an old Alleynian and the editor of the Guardian is an Old Cranleighan. Indeed the Guardian has been edited by privately educated men for the last sixty years… But then many of our most prominent contemporary radical and activist writers are also privately educated.

George Monbiot of the Guardian was at Stowe, Seumas Milne of the Guardian was at Winchester and perhaps the most radical new voice of all Laurie Penny of the Independent – was educated here at Brighton College. Now I record these achievements not because I wish to either decry the individuals concerned or criticise the schools they attended. Far from it. It is undeniable that the individuals I have named are hugely talented and the schools they attended are premier league institutions.”

Gove’s state school and then scholarship education will set him up nicely for a post-Etonian PM world…

Just in case the Queen’s Speech was not a big enough clue that the government is losing its way, take a look at what the Cabinet Office are up to:

“For years taxpayers’ money was thrown at expensive branding exercises. We are now doing this work in house so it does not cost the taxpayer a single penny. We have developed a new consistent approach to our identity which comprises the royal crest alongside the relevant organisation name.”

Guido is a little worried if the they genuinely believe that because the work is done in house, it does not cost anything. It took him about thirty seconds to find this gem from the Tory 2009 press release archive:

“Caroline Spelman, shadow Communities & Local Government secretary, said: “This is a Whitehall farce at taxpayers’ expense. Taxes have gone through the roof under Labour, and examples like these show how the public’s money has been squandered on vanity ministerial projects and a corrosive culture of spin. Advertising and marketing expenditure across Whitehall will be cut back under Conservatives.”

That didn’t take long…

Tristan Pithers, who was the organiser of Ben Bradshaw’s re-election campaign “We’re Backing Ben 2010″, has defected to the Lib Dems stating:

“The class-warfare that the Labour Party is launching on the Government is shameful. It is not the kind of politics a serious Opposition should be engaging in. Mr Miliband should understand better than many that it is not your background that defines you but your ideas. If he believes that governments should not be run by privileged, sheltered millionaires then he and his Shadow Cabinet should hand in their resignations tomorrow morning.”

Yet another Blarite jumps the two Ed’s ship. 

It’s not just Labour who are playing musical chairs. No less than 40% of Leeds Conservative Future committee walked out of the Conservative Party this weekend and joined Farage’s growing bandwagon. This latest exodus from the Young Conservatives led to their thirsty chairman Ben Howlett having a near Twitter meltdown last night. He tried to claim that none of the defectors had even been members, despite some of them standing for local council seats. His big mistake was claiming he looked them up on a central membership database…

Personal data relating to an individual’s political opinions constitutes “sensitive personal data”, making it all the more sacrosanct. Where data is not being processed in a manner that complies with the Data Protection Act, the victim is entitled to compensation for damage and distress suffered. Guido is guessing that Howlett was not aware that Section 55 of the Data Protection Act states that a person must not obtain or disclose information contained in the personal data without consent. Guido’s learned friends reckon to tweet said information looks a lot like a criminal offence…

Jeremy Hunt may have bought some time yesterday but he is by no means out of the woods yet. Miliband is touring the studios this morning calling him a “firewall” for David Cameron. Andrew Mitchell was sent out to Newsnight to defend Hunt last night and deployed the ‘Gordon Brown didn’t go when his SpAd resigned’ line. True, but two wrongs do not make a right…

Mitchell was curve-balled with a quote by the Home Secretary Theresa May from last week. Her words on the deportation saga are being pushed around this morning: “If any of my officials made a mistake, that is my responsibility…” 

Hunt’s SpAd has been resigned for apparently speaking to News Corp without Hunt’s permission, but it does not stop there. Section 4 of  the Special Advisers code states:

“The responsibility for the management and conduct of special advisers, including discipline, rests with the Minister who made the appointment.”

That is also confirmed in section 3.3 of the Ministerial Code:

“All special advisers must uphold their responsibility to the Government as a whole, not just their appointing Minister. The  responsibility for the management and conduct of special advisers, including discipline, rests with the Minister who made the appointment. Individual Ministers will be accountable to the Prime Minister, Parliament and the public for their actions and decisions in respect of their special advisers. It is, of course, also open to the Prime Minister to terminate employment by withdrawing his consent to an individual appointment.”

With Hunt up at 12.30, Guido is wondering how he’s going to try claim his SpAd was acting rogue when last night he said the contact was authorised?

UPDATE: Adam Smith says:

“While it was part of my role to keep News Corporation informed throughout the BskyB bid process, the content and extent of my contact was done without authorisation from the Secretary of State. I do not recognise all of what Fred Michel said, but nonetheless I appreciate that my activities at times went too far and have, taken together, created the perception that News Corporation had too close a relationship with the department, contrary to the clear requirements set out by Jeremy Hunt and the permanent secretary that this needed to be a fair and scrupulous process. Whilst I firmly believe that the process was in fact conducted scrupulously fairly, as a result of my activities it is only right for me to step down as special adviser to Jeremy Hunt.”

They have now admitted that there was wrong doing. The rules are very clear…

Adam Smith picture from Steve Back.

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…

Guido would not recommend a future poker career for Mr Hunt…

HT to @fieldproducer

Guido has been talking to a former Office of Fair Trading Principle Case Officer who is not confident Hunt can survive this as it brings into question their whole organisation:

“The first thing with mergers and acquisitions is that it is absolutely key to keep the parties at arms length. The OFT is a non government agency, it has a director general who is above the politics so that the BIS cannot lean on them. In practical terms we all know it happens, but to have it so clearly in writing undermines the whole system. It’s a nightmare for the whole structure of the agency.”

Even if there was no contact with “JH” and the News Corp lobbyist directly, the Culture Secretary’s adviser Adam Smith was obviously communicating heavily and the emails are littered with accurate reports of events before they happened. Direct contact or not, these emails are just two examples of both these key OFT rules being broken.

UPDATE: Hunt’s statement will apparently say that the emails are inaccurate and that he wants to set the record straight on the stand. He seems to be gearing up to play the no direct contact angle. Hard to prove that his office was not acting on his behalf…

Jeremy Hunt told Parliament in March this year: “at every stage of this process we have sought to be completely transparent, impartial and fair.” Apart from that bit where Cable “declared war”.

At the Lobby briefing this morning Christopher Hope of the Telegraph asked No. 10 whether there had been any inappropriate communication between the Murdochs and Hunt. The reply was “no”. 

This afternoon from we learn that Hunt’s people were sending briefings, updates and supportive words about the bid to Murdoch’s men. The cache of emails will be released at 4pm – there could well be a killer line. Someone who has seen files declares that they are “devastating”. The hunt is on…

UPDATE: Spokesman for PM says he has full confidence in Jeremy Hunt. The hare is running.

James Murdoch has given the British establishment another lesson in mid-Atlantic business speak this morning. The long drawn out discussion has thrown up some interesting snippets so far. Not least was the discussion around a Christmas dinner foolishly attended by the Prime Minister at Rebekah Brooks’ house, which Guido broke a day before the Guardian claimed the scoop. You read it right here first…

Murdoch Jr. confessed that the BSkyB bid had come up at said dinner: “It was a tiny side conversation, it was not a discussion.” Which is somewhat different to what government spinners have said previously. A nervous No.10 will be thinking it could have been a lot worse, but this is still a potential breach of the Ministerial Code as Labour pointed out at the time.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt was not so lucky though. Murdoch coughed that Hunt was essentially his back-channel point man for the deal after Vince Cable made clear that a meeting was not going to happen. The chief inquisitor Mr Jay called him Hunt a “cheerleader” and his statements made to the Commons on the matter are looking a little shaky this afternoon…

UPDATE: Rumour reaches Guido that correspondence between Hunt, his SpAds and the Murdochs in regard to BSkyB will be published by the inquiry later. It is said to be very bad news for Hunt.

UPDATE II: Hundreds of pages of emails will be released covering conversations with Hunt’s staff and Murdoch staff. At 4pm…