The number of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission rose sevenfold last year – but more than two thirds of them concerned a single national newspaper article.

In its annual report published today, the PCC revealed that it was contacted more than 37,000 times by members of the public last year – up from 4,698 the previous year.

However more than 25,000 of those complaints concerned a single article by Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir on the death former Boyzone singer Stephen Gateley.

Of the 1,134 cases where the PCC actually launched an investigation – up from 949 in 2008 – only a third concerned regional newspapers.

The report reveals that in total the PCC made 1,731 rulings in total during 2009, of which 43pc were critical of the newspapers concerned.

There were 738 possible breaches of the editor’s code of practice investigated, of which 609 were amicably resolved without the need for the PCC to take any further action.

Critical adjudications – in which the Commission elected publicly to censure the editor – were issued in only 18 cases.

Baroness Peta Buscombe, chairman of the PCC, said, “I hope that the next year will see the service adapt and improve further. I hope too that we will see greater understanding and appreciation of the public service the PCC provides.”