On Thursday's Question Time, Prime Minister David - sorry, some actor named Hugh - put forward the argument for increased regulation of the press.
The phonehacking scandal was so bad, he said, that there was a clear case for a print media version of Ofcom. Free press go to hell - you've screwed up and now you shall pay.
It's a kneejerk reaction, and absolutely not the way to go. Let's be clear, what happened at the late News of the World was disgraceful, but would more regulation really have stopped it?
Ofcom monitors after the event, not before or during. A journalist in the desperate hunt for a scoop, who displayed a willingness to circumvent common decency, would hardly have been deterred by the possibility of censure. Otherwise no potentially libellous and unnecessary story would ever get published and no televisions or radio broadcast would ever be found to have breached regulations.
More importantly, more regulation is essentially shorthand for a weaker fourth estate. Journalists are by no means saints, but neither are they all moral wastrels. Look, this week, at The Times' adoption campaign. That's one example of a glorious history of changing the world through the printed word - a tradition that should be guarded, not dismissed at the first sign of a crack.
Would the Narey Report have been possible even with tougher guidelines or a stepped-up Press Complaints Commission? Possibly, most probably. But it's hard to be sure that honest and deserving investigative journalism wouldn't suffer.
What the phonehacking scandal shows is that journalism, like every industry, harbours bad seeds. There are corrupt coppers, bent bankers and dodgy dustbin men. That's not an argument for limiting the scope of those professions, or for reducing them to mere show ponies. It's an argument for tighter internal management and for a change to the culture of turning a blind eye for the sake of a good splash.
But in a free country, journalists should be answerable to themselves and their own moral compasses, not to some outside body set up in a rush so politicians and newspaper chiefs can avoid the tough questions.
Yes, there is a case for a full and thorough public inquiry. But not for tearing the system apart because of a loathing for a certain media mogul.
There are plenty of countries out there without a free press. Hugh Grant is welcome to trot off to them if he desires to live somewhere where there is no danger of a hack capturing his indiscretions for posterity. I'm glad I don't live in one.