Anyone who’s watched a live interview with Miriam Margolyes will know you’re never quite sure what she might say, as she proved when she paid a visit to Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday morning.
During her interview, which aired at around 8.30 in the morning, Miriam paid tribute to her former Harry Potter co-star Robbie Coltraine, but couldn’t help remarking on the fact that her appearance on the show came after the newly-appointed chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
And that’s when things took a rather explicit turn.
“I never thought I’d be sitting in the seat that Jeremy Hunt has just sat in,” she explained.
“The thing is, when I saw him there, I just said, ‘you’ve got a hell of a job, best of luck’. And what I really wanted to say was, ‘fuck you, bastard’. But you can’t say that!”
“No you can’t say that, we’ll have to have you out of the studio now,” presenter Justin Webb responded, with co-host Martha Kearney offering her “many apologies”.
Of course, the clip quickly began sparking a lot of conversation on Twitter, with former Labour advisor Alastair Campbell hailing Miriam’s outburst as “wonderful”, claiming she “speaks for millions”.
In recent history, Miriam has courted controversy with her outspoken views, including back in 2020, when she famously said of then-prime minister Boris Johnson, after he was admitted to intensive care with Covid: “I had difficulty not wanting Boris Johnson to die.
“I wanted him to die. Then I thought that will reflect badly on me and I don’t want to be the sort of person that wants people to die.
“So then I wanted him to get better, which he did do, he did get better. But he didn’t get better as a human being. And I really would prefer that.”
Miriam later said, after sparking a wave of Ofcom complaints: “I can’t regret telling the truth.
“Daddy always said you must have a golden reputation, you must never do anything wrong and I don’t do anything wrong, in my view. I always try and do the right thing.”