It’s worth keeping an eye on Don Foster’s conference motion tomorrow morning at 9.30.
It could provide an easy political hit for the party.
Hugh Grant gave a taste of this when he spoke at a Hacked Off fringe event this afternoon in Birmingham.
He told the Lib Dem conference audience: “You’ve never been in bed with these scumbags. You are always looking for opportunities to punch above your weight – could there be a better opportunity?”
He said phone hacking and press privacy is “an open goal” for the party.
“I see it as a great opportunity for the Lib Dems and good luck with it.”
Don Foster, a former Lib Dem spokesman on culture media and sport, briefly discussed the upcoming motion at the fringe.
“Significant reforms” to libel laws are required, he said. “That should change and it will.”
Foster described the Press Complaints Commission as “failed” and “weak and pathetic”.
He called for independent regulation of the PCC – “not regulation imposed by the state”.
Watch out for more on this tomorrow.
It has echoes of the Lib Dem line on expenses when the scandal first broke – the idea that the party is above that kind of politics
At the same fringe event, Hugh Grant also revealed he had shared a “seven minute” lunch with Nick Clegg to discuss Lord Justice Leveson's judicial inquiry into phone hacking.
“I am anxious on this issue,” he told the room. “Having made so much progress over the summer, I am worried at momentum being lost.”
He described the terms of reference in Leveson’s review as “great”. But with the first report not likely for another year, the issue may fall off the radar.
“He [Clegg] did rather depress me by saying nothing can be done legislatively until Leveson,” Grant said.
“When Lord Leveson does report, I hope we can move to legislation fast – in this Parliament.”
The panel was also asked for an assessment of the culture, media and sport committee’s handling of the phone hacking inquiry, and whether we saw the real Rupert Murdoch.
Grant was pretty damning. “Speaking as a bad actor myself, I thought the performance was dodgy,” he quipped.
“I didn’t buy the long pauses. My sources tell me he was a hell of a lot sharper the week before.”
He also described the select committee’s grilling as “un-tough and starstruck”.
“This was the one chance we had to get this guy in the dock and everyone was up his arse,” Grant concluded.
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