Frederic Michel says that he had no sense of whether or not the Tory Party was inclined to support Murdoch's bid for the rest of BSkyB. Is this plausible? No. Any reasonable observer would have been able to guess that, for instance, Tories such as Jeremy Hunt would be more likely to support Murdoch than, say, Liberal Democrats like Vince Cable.

Michel has said that he only became aware that News Corp was launching its bid for full control of BSkyB the day before it was announced. He says that he didn't have a view on whether particular ministers would or would not favour the bid. Logically, this means NewsCorp employed, at significant expense, a political lobbyist with remarkably poor understanding of leading political players. At the very least, then, whoever appointed Michel to the task must have been myopic.

The Michel-DCMS numbers.

- 191 telephone calls;
- 158 emails;
- 799 text messages, of which 90% were with Smith.

- Between 28 November 2011 and 11 July 2011 Smith sent 257 text messages to Michel

Not many businesses get this much attention from special advisers to extremely ambitious Cabinet Ministers. News Corp are a lucky bunch.

Here is the email from Michel to James Murdoch, in which he says that Jeremy Hunt has received "very strong legal advice" not to meet the younger Murdoch: www.guardian.co.uk

It does suggest that Hunt resisted, at least in part, the overtures of News Corp at one point. Much more effective to do it all through his special adviser instead.

It's very important to bear in mind what this looks like to non-journalists - especially, perhaps, to leaders of small businesses.

Frederic Michel has had an extremely large amount of attention and even affection from a Cabinet Minister and his special adviser. Further, he has clearly collaborated with them, for instance in preparing speeches.

Most small businesses, the engines of growth in our economy, couldn't afford to pay for a lobbyist like Michel, to grease relations with the political class. And they would do anything to be on text messaging terms with someone as senior as Jeremy Hunt.

Is it really plausible to argue that the level of access that Michel obtained for News Corp is unrelated to the power, influence, and wealth of Rupert Murdoch? No.

The Inquiry will be resuming shortly.

Frederic Michel denies Adam Smith gave him a running commentary of the BSkyB bid, but admits updates on "timing, process and on the atmospherics of the day".