Cameron clears Hunt after Leveson

The evidence session was barely over. The prime minister, I hear, hadn’t watched a frame of it. But various aides in Number 10 had, and they’d briefed him on what texts/emails were coming up today too. So the PM has proclaimed Jeremy Hunt has been vindicated by the day of giving evidence to Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry and there is now no need to refer him to Sir Alex Allen for separate investigation for any possible breach of the ministerial code.

Lord Justice Leveson said three times over the preceding weeks that his inquiry was not the right place to decide whether Mr Hunt had a case to answer under the ministerial code. He may be forgiven for wondering what a judge has to do to get heard. But Number 10 sees the Leveson process as a sufficient grilling to have found out if Mr Hunt did anything untoward and is keen to draw a line under the whole issue.

Just as the Treasury is keen to draw a line under the Budget. Three U-turns in one week is quite a record: messy and raising questions about how focused the top Treasury team were as they drafted the whole thing.  The Treasury line is that this means they can clear the decks and focus on deificit reduction and what George Osborne calls ominously in his comments today “the gathering storm” (they really have been reading about existential threats to the nation).

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