Hugh Grant and Low Life

I’ve always rather admired Hugh Grant, so it was almost a pleasure to be beaten up
by him on Newsnight last Friday. He was attacking the celebrity-hunting media, whereas I set out to defend free press and self-regulation of the media. If you’re going to have sympathy with
any Hollywood figure, you’d have sympathy with Hugh: he’s a single man who has never tried to moralise, and has cameras pointing at him everywhere he goes. Besides, he made an
impassioned and powerful case against the intrusion of the paparazzi — while yours truly was left defending the Press Complaints Commission. But I didn’t know, until I met him that
night, that Hugh is also a Spectator subscriber — and has been for years.

Before we were on air, I asked him what he reads first: often James Delingpole, he said, Rod, and “Taki, when he’s sober.”