George Osborne 'talked about BSkyB bid over dinner' with Rebekah Brooks The day after the restaurant dinner, Mrs Brooks wrote an email to Fred Michel, News Corporation's head of public affairs saying "GO -- total bafflement at response." Pressed on what this meant, Mrs Brooks said: "It may have been precisely three minutes of me saying, can you believe that that has happened?" and George Osborne looking slightly perplexed and me responding to Fred Michel the next day. I mean it was a very brief conversation, but it did happen. Mrs Brooks said the Chancellor had "never explicitly said" he supported the bid, which was later withdrawn in the wake of revelations about phone-hacking at News Corporation's News of the World newspaper. She said she had "put the arguments to Mr Osborne" about the takeover creating jobs and would "waste no opportunity" in advancing arguments to support the bid. "They would all say the same thing: it's not my decision," she said, referring to her conversations with politicians. At the time of the dinner, Mr Osborne's cabinet colleague Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, was in charge of saying whether the bid should be allowed. Mrs Brooks also said Mr Osborne had been to a private dinner at her home in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, close to where the Prime Minister lives. The discussion about BSkyB raises the possibility that Mr Osborne could also be asked to appear in front of the inquiry as well as giving written evidence. Seven other Cabinet members are expected to give evidence in person to the inquiry, including David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, who have both come under pressure over their links with News Corporation during the bid. Mr Osborne was also involved in the appointment of Andy Coulson, a former editor of the News of the World, as a spin doctor at 10 Downing Street.