Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson in trouble

The Guardian reports:

Jeremy Hunt faces renewed pressure after he failed to declare thousands of pounds of donations from media and arts companies which sponsored a series of networking events before the 2010 general election.

The culture secretary is to amend his entry in the House of Commons register of members' interests after what aides described as a "miscommunication" with his deputy, Ed Vaizey.

Hunt, who is fighting for his political life after the resignation of his special adviser Adam Smith, attended three networking events before the election. They were sponsored by the advertising agency DDB UK, which paid £1,473.81 in September 2009; the Groucho Club, which provided £1,435 in November 2009; and M&C Saatchi which stumped up £4,563.50 in July 2009.

The culture secretary will have to declare donations totalling £3,736.15 – half of the value of the three events. Vaizey will amend his entry to make a similar declaration for the three events. He has already declared a further four events, one of which was sponsored by BSkyB, which Hunt did not attend.

Hunt's office blamed the oversight on a misunderstanding with Vaizey who organised the events and who declared in his entry that he and his boss had attended the events...

and reports:

Fresh details of how News International (NI) apparently sought goodwill by dangling two offers of sponsorship in front of the London mayor, Boris Johnson, are contained in evidence published by the Leveson inquiry.

Rupert Murdoch has admitted in Leveson testimony that executives at the company were at the time - throughout 2010 - attempting to cover up the truth about phone hacking at the News of the World.

In September 2010, Johnson publicly attacked the hacking disclosures, calling them party political "codswallop".

Documents subsequently revealed that NI was at the time offering him £2m towards an academy school in London and talking of donating millions more to sponsor another Johnson project, a cable car crossing the river Thames...

Johnson's lobbying appeared to reach its height on 30 November, in east London, when he met James Murdoch, accompanied by Brooks and the editor of the Times, James Harding, as well as Gove himself.

According to his hospitality register, after an inspection of a potential academy site alongside the Royal Docks, the party adjourned to the new Forman's smoked salmon restaurant at the Olympic Park and a Transport for London official made a presentation about the cable-car scheme.

Johnson's hopes for money from the Murdochs came to nothing. The academy was never built, with NI blaming its pullout on the failure of Gove's department to provide the bulk of the capital required for a new school building. Emirates airline did eventually offer to sponsor part of the cost of the cable car.

In the runup to the mayoral elections, Johnson lost his temper when challenged by BBC London's political editor, Tim Donovan. He said on-air that such questions about his dealings with NI were "fucking bollocks".

He subsequently defended his actions, saying: "In difficult economic circumstances my job is to get investment for London."