You've already seen Hugh Grant, politician. He played a prime minister called, as it happens, David, in the hit movie Love, Actually and it is that same persona – charming, self-deprecating but full of righteous anger – on show on the party conference circuit as Grant becomes the unexpected must-see attraction.
He was in Liverpool with Labour this week, just as he was in Birmingham for the Lib Dems last week and will travel to the Tories in Manchester next week, as the star turn of the Hacked Off campaign for action over phone hacking. His two performances so far played to standing room only.
He gets no special treatment – taking his place at the platform table along with the party spokesmen and worthy campaigners. But when he speaks, there's the sound of frantic note-taking from the ranks of the press and intense competition for front-row seats, especially among women of a certain age.
He doesn't disappoint. Though the words come with that diffidence made famous in Four Weddings and a Funeral, they pack a punch. "Your years of association as a party with the Murdoch press," he told Labour delegates on Monday, "I'm not really sure that suited you. I'm not sure that was your best look." He got a laugh for that, as he did when he praised Ed Miliband for making Labour "the first of the big parties to snip the umbilical cord with Voldemort".
His knowledge of the phone hacking affair is impressive, wrong-footing those ready to dismiss him as celebrity eye-candy. He supplied additional intrigue when asked what the public can expect to emerge from the Leveson inquiry: "I suspect an awful lot of dirt will come out that will amaze and horrify the public." The one nugget of inside info he passed on was about Leveson himself. Grant had heard that the judge "has absolutely no sense of humour – which could be a drawback".
He listens respectfully to fellow speakers, unlike those wannabe movie stars – the front-rank politicians – who arrive, speak, then leave. Grant seems at pains to prove he is not being starry but sincere – dressing in dark, unflashy clothes for the occasion.
Indeed, he had to be persuaded to do this autumn tour. "He was cautious about doing any," says Evan Harris, the former Lib Dem MP and Hacked Off campaigner who has been accompanying Grant from city to city. Harris told the actor that if he appeared at one conference, he would probably have to do all three lest he appear partisan.
Grant is careful to retain his independence, avoiding applauding anti-Tory remarks from fellow speakers in Liverpool. But he is not above flirting. He said that when Miliband took his stance against News International, he found himself "moving from floating voter to Labour-curious".
That produced a few sighs and the odd saucy giggle, standard fare for a Hugh Grant movie – but unusual for a Labour meeting.
