Miriam Margolyes: what did actress say on BBC Radio 4 about Jeremy Hunt, did she swear?

Miriam Margolyes dropped an f-bomb live on Radio 4 as she delivered her strong worded verdict on the new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

The actress was recalling how she had wanted to swear after bumping into the former health secretary at a BBC radio station and did not hold her tongue. It comes after Mr Hunt replaced Kwasi Kwarteng in Number 11 on Friday (14 October).

The 81-year-old actress, who is known to be outspoken during interviews, said she had wished Mr Hunt the best of luck, but added that she had wanted to use much stronger words towards him. Margolyes had been on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme paying tribute to the late actor Robbie Coltrane, who died yesterday.

What did Miriam Margolyes say on Radio 4?

At the end of her interview on the radio station this morning (15 October) she told the presenters Martha Kearney and Justin Webb that she had greeted Mr Hunt, who had been interviewed on Saturday morning’s programme before her.

She said: “When I saw him there I just said ‘you’ve got a hell of a job, the best of luck’. What I really wanted to say (was) ‘f*** you, you b******’, 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!”

Mr Hunt was conducting his first round of media interviews since he replaced Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor on Friday. He has said he will meet with Treasury officials later on Saturday and with Prime Minister Liz Truss on Sunday (16 October).

What has Jeremy Hunt said after become Chancellor?

Mr Hunt now as the most powerful figure in Government, used a series of broadcast interviews on Saturday morning to signal that Ms Truss’s immediate economic plan is now defunct as he suggested that tax rises could form part of a painful fiscal package designed to restore market confidence in the UK. He was parachuted into Number 11 to replace Mr Kwarteng in a bid to restore order to Ms Truss’s ailing administration.

In his first full day in office, he warned of “difficult decisions” to come as he suggested that taxes could rise and budgets – including on health and defence – would likely be squeezed further in the coming months. He told Sky News: “It was a mistake when we’re going to be asking for difficult decisions across the board on tax and spending to cut the rate of tax paid by the very wealthiest. It was a mistake to fly blind and to do these forecasts without giving people the confidence of the Office of Budget Responsibility saying that the sums add up.”

Mr Hunt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he now had a “clean slate” on the mini-budget, as he prepares to deliver a highly anticipated fiscal statement on October 31. “I’m leaving open all possibilities this morning,” he said. Nonetheless, his comments indicated that cuts to public spending and tax rises could be coming.

He said: “Spending will not rise by as much as people would like and all Government departments are going to have to find more efficiencies than they were planning to. And some taxes will not be cut as quickly as people want. Some taxes will go up. So it’s going to be difficult.”