David Cameron defends Jeremy Hunt's handling of BSkyB bid David Cameron said he had no regrets about appointing Jeremy Hunt to oversee News Corp's BSkyB bid. David Cameron has strongly defended Jeremy Hunt's handling of Rupert Murdoch's bid for BSkyB in the light of new evidence showing that Hunt was privately pushing for the takeover to be allowed before he was appointed to oversee the process. In an interview, Cameron said Hunt had acted "impartially" from the moment he took charge of handling the decision in December 2010 and that what he had said about it previously was not relevant. The prime minister also said he had no regrets about giving the task to Hunt, who is fighting to hang on to his post as culture secretary following the revelation that he told Cameron in a letter in November 2010 that it would be "totally wrong" to cave in to those opposing the bid. Cameron made his comments on Friday as the Leveson inquiry announced that Hunt will explain his side of the story when he gives evidence for a whole day next week, on Thursday. Other witnesses next week include Tony Blair, who is appearing on Monday. In an interview with ITV's Daybreak, Cameron said that by November 2010 Hunt had already made public comments supportive of News Corporation's bid for BSkyB that were "more powerful" than the arguments expressed in the letter revealed at the Leveson inquiry on Thursday. At that point Vince Cable, the business secretary, was in charge of the bid, not Hunt. The prime minister has been criticised for putting Hunt in charge in December 2010, after Cable was recorded secretly saying he was at war with the Murdochs, when Cameron knew Hunt wanted the bid to go ahead. Cameron told ITV that this was not relevant. The key thing was it wasn't what [Hunt] had said in the past, it was how he was going to do the job. And I think, if you look at how he did the job, he asked for independent advice at every stage and he took that independent advice and he did it in a thoroughly proper way. Cameron also said he had consulted the cabinet secretary, then Sir Gus O'Donnell, about his decision to pass responsibility for media takeovers from Cable's business department to Hunt's culture department in December 2010. Cameron said O'Donnell had "consulted lawyers" before approving the decision. Cameron conceded that O'Donnell did not know about Hunt's November letter when he agreed to allow the culture secretary to take charge of media competition policy. But the prime minister claimed that did not matter because O'Donnell was aware of Hunt's public pro-Murdoch comments which, Cameron said, were "more effusive" than those in the private letter. After he took charge of the issue, Hunt handled it fairly, Cameron said. He did act impartially because he took independent advice at every stage and he followed the independent advice at every stage, so it was right to give him the job. The prime minister went on: "I hadn't wanted to give anybody the job, I'd wanted Vince Cable, the existing business secretary, to go on doing the job, but that wasn't possible." Cameron also said he had no regrets about his decision to put the culture department in charge. "It was the right thing to do under the circumstances which weren't of my making," he said. He went on: "Some people are saying there was some great conspiracy between me and Rupert Murdoch to do some big deal to back them in return for support. Rupert Murdoch has said that's not true, James Murdoch has said that's not true, I have said that's not true. There was no great conspiracy. But Cameron did accept that relations between politicians and the media had got too close. There are lessons to learn - we are already learning those with far more transparency about contacts between press and politicians. No government has done that before, but I'm pleased my government is doing it," he said. Labour has demanded Hunt's resignation, accusing him of various breaches of the ministerial code, including misleading parliament. Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader and shadow culture secretary, told BBC Breakfast on Friday that the evidence of Hunt's wrongdoing was "absolutely massive." She said: "There are two bits of evidence, actual straightforward evidence, that Jeremy Hunt was not impartial, he was meddling before he even took over the bid and was on the side of the Murdochs. The first was that he had to be warned off by the civil servants not to have any more meetings with Rupert Murdoch but he kept up the contact through his special adviser, and secondly he wrote a memo to the prime minister. Blair will give evidence to the Leveson inquiry for a full day on Monday. On Tuesday it will hear from Michael Gove, the education secretary, and Theresa May, the home secretary; on Wednesday it will hear from Cable and Kenneth Clarke, the justice secretary; and on Thursday Hunt will give evidence. No date has yet been announced for Cameron's appearance at the inquiry.