Murdoch took to Twitter to criticise the talks in Birmingham between UK Prime Minister David Cameron and members of the Hacked Off campaign, singer Charlotte Church, former Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames and actor Hugh Grant.

“Told UK's Cameron receiving scumbag celebrities pushing for even more privacy laws. Trust the toffs! Transparency under attack. Bad,” Murdoch tweeted.

According to the Guardian, the comments sparked a storm of disapproval, and Murdoch was repeatedly asked to apologise and remove the tweets.

Hames hit back at Murdoch tweeting, ‘never let the facts get in the way of a good story eh Rupert. Happy to discuss our concerns with you sometime?’

“I've been called worse, but admittedly not by CEO of large multinational corp.” she added.

According to the paper, the former Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris was one of the first to respond to the comments on Twitter.

“By 'scumbag celebs' do u mean the WPC u put under surveillance, the teen girl yr papers perved over, or the actor u hacked?” he tweeted.