Hugh Grant has said the public are "aghast" at David Cameron's decision to oppose the statuary underpinning of a new system of press regulation.
In an interview with parliament's House magazine, the Hollywood actor turned phone hacking campaigner said the prime minister had gone back on his word to support a system of press regulation that would allow him to “look the victims [of phone hacking] in the eye”.
“To say that over and over again and then within hours of a very mild report being published to turn his back on those victims and jump straight back in between the warm sheets with the newspaper barons, I think was an act that the whole country was aghast at.
"And I think maybe the prime minister and those Tories who are opposed to any kinds of statutory underpinning are beginning to see that the country has rumbled that.”
Grant told House that he found Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg "very charming" but that he did not understand why the prime minister had not warned hacking victims he would not support the statutory underpinning of press regulation.
"I can’t pretend that I’m not disappointed that in two meetings with the prime minster with Hacked Off and one meeting which he had with the non-celebrity victims about three weeks ago, he made no mention at all of the fact that any kind of underpinning in law to an independent regulator would be a sticking point.
"And I would have expected the prime minister to make that clear – he was certainly asked. So that’s disappointing. But the other two have been as good as their word from beginning to end.”
National newspaper editors said on Thursday evening that they will put in place the broad proposals of the Leveson Inquiry - apart from the call for statutory underpinning.