Jeremy Hunt and the secret BSkyB memo to David Cameron Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, added: "It is clear from today's evidence that David Cameron gave responsibility to Jeremy Hunt for deciding on the BSkyB bid when he knew only too well that the Culture Secretary was actively supporting the bid. The Prime Minister should never have given him the job. It is clear that Jeremy Hunt was not the impartial arbiter he was required to be, and he should already have resigned. The lengthy memo was not declared to Sir Gus O'Donnell, the then cabinet secretary, either by Mr Cameron or Mr Hunt at the time of the appointment, it emerged. Sir Gus provided legal advice on whether Mr Hunt could handle the BSkyB decision in an impartial manner. Downing Street sources said that the memo would not have changed the cabinet secretary's decision to back Mr Hunt's appointment, but this assertion was expected to be challenged by opposition MPs in the coming days. Mr Cameron admitted that he had received the memo, prompting Labour MPs to demand the recall of Parliament, currently in recess for Whitsun, so that Mr Cameron and Mr Hunt could make statements and be questioned by MPs. The Leveson Inquiry into media standards also heard that Mr Hunt and his officials exchanged 799 text messages with Frederic Michel, News Corp's chief lobbyist, during the bid process. One message from the Culture Secretary read "Merci. Large drink tonight" after the Frenchman congratulated him on a performance in the Commons. Mr Hunt has previously told the Commons that all of his contact with Mr Michel was minuted. The Culture Secretary's special adviser, Adam Smith, was given no legal advice on how he should communicate with News Corporation executives, even though he was charged with handling discussions on the quasi-judicial process. Four days before Mr Hunt wrote the memo to Mr Cameron, he had spoken to James Murdoch on his mobile phone, having been told by lawyers to cancel a proposed meeting with the News Corp executive. At the time. Mr Cable was still in charge of deciding whether News Corp's bid to buy the 61 per cent of BSkyB shares it did not already own should be referred to regulators. A month later, Mr Hunt took over the brief from Mr Cable, who was replaced after telling undercover reporters from The Daily Telegraph that he had declared "war" on Rupert Murdoch. The memo read: "James Murdoch is pretty furious at Vince's referral [of the bid] to Ofcom [the broadcasting watchdog]. Essentially what James Murdoch wants to do is to repeat what his father did with the [Sun] move to Wapping and create the world's first multi-platform media operator, available from paper to web to TV to iPhone to iPad. The UK has the chance to lead the way ... but if we block it our media sector will suffer for years ... I think it would be totally wrong to cave in to the Mark Thompson/Channel 4/Guardian line that this represents a substantial change of control given that we all know Sky is controlled by News Corp now anyway. The Daily Telegraph was part of the alliance opposed to the takeover. Mr Hunt ended the note by suggesting that he and Mr Cameron should have a meeting with Mr Cable and Nick Clegg "to discuss the policy issues that are thrown up as a result." The memo could be viewed as contradicting comments that Mr Hunt made in the Commons last month, when he said: "I made absolutely no interventions seeking to influence a quasi-judicial decision that was at that time the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Business." The memo was sent to Mr Smith, the former special adviser to Mr Hunt who resigned last month over his own role in the handling of BSkyB, to check it before it was sent to Downing Street. Mr Smith told the Leveson Inquiry that he did not believe the meeting went ahead. It is understood that the Prime Minister did not reply to the memo. Mr Hunt had a statutory obligation to remain impartial as he considered whether to refer the BSkyB bid to regulators and the Competition Commission over concerns that it could reduce the "plurality" or diversity of media in the UK. A source close to Mr Hunt said the memo did not provide any reason to think the Culture Secretary could not carry out the quasi-judicial role. News Corporation dropped the takeover bid in July 2011 following the phone hacking scandal. "Jeremy is clear in the memo, as he was throughout the bid process, that it should only go ahead if it addressed the plurality concerns," said the source.