Cameron denies 'grand deal' to help Murdoch

Prime Minister David Cameron has denied favouring Rupert Murdoch's business interests in exchange for political support from his newspaper empire, and defended a minister's handling of an ill-fated takeover bid involving the media magnate.

Cameron is on the back foot ahead of local elections across much of Britain on Thursday. After a month of bad headlines about Murdoch, the budget and the return of the economy to recession, an opinion poll registered support for his Conservative Party at its lowest since 2004.

In a television interview on Sunday, Cameron said there had been no deal with Murdoch to nod through NewsCorp's attempted takeover of Britain's biggest satellite TV firm BSkyB in return for support at the 2010 election that brought him to power.

"The idea of some grand bargain between me and Rupert Murdoch, that is not true," Cameron told the BBC. "I do not do things or change my policies to suit this proprietor or that proprietor. That is not the way I work, and I will say that under oath."

An inquiry into phone-hacking by Murdoch's newspapers, led by the judge Brian Leveson, has revealed the formerly close links between Murdoch and the British government.

An adviser to Jeremy Hunt, the media and culture secretary who had overseen the BSkyB bid until Murdoch withdrew it in July, resigned on Wednesday after emails emerged showing he had been in close contact with NewsCorp about the deal.

Now the opposition Labour Party is pressing Hunt to resign, saying Cameron must launch a separate inquiry into whether Hunt himself breached rules on ministerial conduct.

However, Cameron said he saw no evidence that Hunt had overstepped the line of propriety and there would be no separate inquiry unless Hunt's testimony to the Leveson inquiry revealed new facts. "As things stand I do not believe that Jeremy Hunt breached the ministerial code," Cameron said.