Harriet Harman has launched a blistering attack on Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, saying he should resign as he "obviously wasn't impartial" in deciding on the BSkyB takeover and was "colluding" with Rupert Murdoch.
Shadow Culture Secretary Harman said Hunt "has done something bad and wrong, and should be fired because of it".
Speaking on LBC Radio, she said: "It's not just a trivial thing about the rules, it's actually about standards. He has fallen way below them"
"I really can't understand why he's still in his job" she added.
Harman said that emails released by the Leveson inquiry showed Hunt was "colluding... with the Murdoch side". She accused the Culture Secretary of using his upcoming Leveson appearance as an excuse to avoid answering questions about his conduct.
"Who is stopping him?" she said "the House of Commons is there, the despatch box is there... there's no reason at all why he shouldn't answer the basic and straightforward questions."
She added: "[His department] shouldn't be having a Secretary of State beleaguered with all these questions having over his head.... It's completely clear that he broke the ministerial code, he was on one side of the bid when he was supposed to be impartial"
Harman also attacked the Conservative Party for its "male-dominated" make-up. "I think the Conservative Party had to get some women involved as they looked so male dominated" she said "we have helped the Tory Party worry about being men only".
She refused to be drawn on whether Labour should offer an In/Out EU referendum, as suggested by former business secretary Lord Mandelson.
"We need to make the argument more clearly about how jobs in this country do depend on us being part of the EU. It's our biggest market. That means we are affected by what goes on in Europe, so we need to have a say" she said.