Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt???s appeal for more Conservatives to be employed by BBC News could be about to be granted ??? except in reverse. Clarence Mitchell, the former BBC journalist turned spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann, is planning to stand as a Tory MP in the next general election. Mitchell, who quit the corporation to head up the media monitoring unit at the government???s Central Office of Information, will face a selection board early next month. He already knows the party???s director of communications, Andy Coulson, rather well ??? from Coulson???s time as editor of the News of the World.