Hugh Grant on the stump – the terrible Love Actually remake nobody wanted

Almost exactly 16 years after he played a Prime Minister who falls for his secretary against the backdrop of London at Christmas time, Hugh Grant has decided the time has come to reinvolve himself in politics. Perhaps Grant – a floppy haired public-school boy who made a career of playing floppy haired public-schoolboys who enjoy bizarre success with women in romantic comedies – has decided that he cannot bear to be upstaged. He has decided to take vengeance on his dark mirror that is Boris Johnson. To this end he hit the streets today campaigning for the Liberal Democrats, helping Chuka Umunna and Luciana Berger who are standing for the party in the capital. The images from the campaign trail of Grant with eager and earnest Lib Dem activists looked like a trailer for a remake of Love Actually.

Is Grant’s decision entirely sound or wise? After all, the last time he associated himself with the Liberal Democrats it was playing the role of the disgraced Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe. It seems highly unlikely, however, that current leader Jo Swinson will find herself implicated in a trial or a dog murder.

After canvassing in the constituencies of Westminster as well as Finchley and Golders Green Grant might conceivably go and help Sam Gyimah in Kensington, an area Grant knows well. This is a strange election, so it is not entirely inconceivable that as he knocks on doors around the constituency he will find himself staring into his own face as he encounters the character he played in the most identikit of his identikit romcoms, Notting Hill.

What has happened to William Thacker, who married the Julia Roberts character in that film? Predictably enough he has been divorced by his superstar wife. Thacker has returned to his life as a purveyor of travel books and is so appalled by recent politics that he holds anti-Brexit events in his shop discussing how travel writing and yoga can help overcome national barriers.

Thacker and Grant have something else in common. They are both supporters of that most doomed of middle-class political hopes –  the tactical voting initiative.

Grant, it seems, can never truly escape his past career – even if he was  convincing playing Thorpe. His journey started with Four Weddings and a Funeral, which began with his character racing around in a panic shouting the f-word as he struggled to make it in time. The Lib Dems need all the help they can get as they struggle to cut through in the final weeks of this campaign. They must hope Grant has not left it too late.