Jeremy Hunt is a firewall for David Cameron, says Ed Miliband The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has not been sacked by David Cameron because is acting as a "firewall" who is insulating the prime minister against further questions about his relationship with top News International executives, according to Labour leader Ed Miliband. Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme Miliband said it "beggars belief" that Hunt was still in his job and that it was "incredible" that he hadn't resigned already following revelations on Tuesday that Hunt's special adviser had allegedly passed sensitive information to a senior News Corporation lobbyist in regards to a £8bn takeover bid of broadcasting giant BSkyB. Why is Jeremy Hunt still in his job? Because David Cameron has questions to answer, and Jeremy Hunt is, if you like, acting as a firewall. And if he goes the questions will then move to David Cameron's conversations with Rebekah Brooks, with James Murdoch and others. Does this matter for politics? I say it does matter because what matters is that you govern in the interests of the British people, not in [the interests of] a few rich powerful people who have access to you. Hunt's special adviser, Adam Smith, resigned on Wednesday after admitting that he had gone "too far" in his dealings with News Corp lobbyist, Frédéric Michel, who was working for James Murdoch at the time. "Frankly it beggars belief that he [Hunt] is still in his job because to believe he should stay you have to believe that his special adviser acted ... as a lone wolf who spent six months in collusion with New Corporation, passing them information that was to be announced in the House of Commons, providing information about discussions with the regulator, providing information about what opposing parties were saying," Miliband said. Some special advisers have resigned in the past and their bosses haven't resigned. But that's because their bosses didn't know what they were up to. This is a completely different category. Miliband said the £8bn takeover was a "a central issue" for Hunt's department and he thought it was "incredible that Jeremy Hunt hasn't resigned and that David Cameron has kept him in his job." Miliband also admitted getting too close to Murdoch himself. Asked earlier this morning on Radio 5 Live about attending a party thrown by the members of the Murdoch family, Ed Miliband said: "In retrospect, we all should have been more wary." In the end you take a judgment that obviously you want your party to do well. You want your party to get positive reporting," he admitted. However, questioned by presenter Evan Davis on Today about his own close relationship with the Murdochs, he said, "There is a world of difference between getting too close to the Murdochs and the kind of pattern of behaviour that we have seen revealed in the last few days at Leveson." Miliband's comments follow an undertaking from Hunt that he is willing to hand over texts, phone records and private emails in an effort to prove he was unaware that his disgraced special adviser had acted without his authority by providing a stream of commercially confidential information to News Corporation during its bid to take full control of BSkyB. Adam Smith fell on his sword on Wednesday an hour before prime minister's questions, admitting that he had allowed the perception to develop that the Murdochs' News Corp had "too close a relationship with the culture department." The stockmarket watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, is understood to be investigating whether Smith's emails to News Corp amounted to a breach of market abuse rules. Leveson told the inquiry that "although I have seen requests for other inquiries and other investigations" - a coded reference to the letter he had received from Hunt - "it seems to me that the better course is to allow this inquiry to proceed" on the timetable already intended. Politicians such as Hunt, but also Cameron and Tony Blair, are scheduled to appear between mid-May and mid-June. Labour demanded that Cameron instruct his independent adviser on the ministerial code to investigate at least three potential breaches of the code by Hunt. Ed Miliband accused Cameron of putting cronies before the country, and revived an old Labour attack on John Major's government, saying a "shadow of sleaze" hung over the government. So far, Leveson has only seen the News Corp email records of the phone calls between Hunt's office and Michel, News Corp's former public affairs director for Europe. Labour MPs are expected to ask Jonathan Stephens, the permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to explain his role when he appears in front of the public accounts committee.