Miriam Margolyes swears live on air about chancellor Jeremy Hunt

theguardian.com:

The actor Miriam Margolyes shocked listeners by saying “Fuck you, bastard” about the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, live on air on Saturday.

The 81-year-old British-Australian actor said she wanted to tell Jeremy Hunt “Fuck you, bastard” after his appearance on BBC Radio 4 just one day after he was announced as the replacement for Kwasi Kwarteng.

Speaking on the Today programme at the end of an interview about the death of Robbie Coltrane, she told presenters Martha Kearney and Justin Webb that she had greeted Hunt, who had been interviewed on Saturday morning’s programme before her.

“When I saw him [Hunt] there, I just said: ‘What a hell of a job, the best of luck.’

And what I really wanted to say was ‘Fuck you, bastard,’ but you can’t say that.”

Webb quickly apologised for the language, adding: “Oh, no, no, no, you mustn’t say that. No, you can’t say that! We’ll have to have you out of the studio now.”

“We will, with many apologies,” Kearney added.

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The moment was shared widely on Twitter, including by Dino Sofos, the creator of the BBC’s Brexitcast, who described Margolyes’ comments as “possibly the greatest moment in the Today programme’s history”.

Margolyes has attracted controversy on a number of occasions throughout her career, including during a virtual appearance on Channel 4’s The Last Leg in 2020,after admitting she “had difficulty not wanting Boris Johnson to die” while the then prime minister was fighting Covid-19.

This is also not the first time broadcasters have had to scramble to avoid embarrassment when discussing Jeremy Hunt.

During a debate in 2019 over who should be the next Tory leader