At 85, actor Miriam Margolyes has lived through much political upheaval, but she says today’s hostile times feel like “the worst yet”. In an edited extract from her new book, she reflects on her journey from teenage Tory to full-throated leftist and argues there is still time to save the nation from the bad guys.
A heavy heart and a changing country
Margolyes writes that a funny thing happened on the way to 2026: she got old and the world turned nasty. “It happened very quickly and it’s to do with politics (the world) and pelvic floor weakness (mine).” She notes that people assume great age brings great wisdom, but “actually we remain who we have always been, only more so”.
The Britain she grew up in feels “almost unrecognisable”, she says, and everyone she speaks to says the same. She quotes the historian Eric Hobsbawm, whom she knew and loved, who argued that people invent the past they want for their own purposes. “He’s right, but that past is still the safe haven I’d like to return to.”
Despite being “never richer or more in demand”, her heart is heavy with foreboding. Her postwar generation lived through the rise and fall of many things, from the Berlin Wall and Winston Churchill to the NHS, the Beatles, Margaret Thatcher, Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. “But this feels the worst time yet.”
Jokes and the loathing of the English
Margolyes says she is not usually one to tell jokes, but she has discovered that jokes can go “straight to the jugular” regarding tensions between nations. She tells two jokes: one about an Englishman lost in Wales who guesses a Welshman’s name is Dai, and another about an Irishman, a Scotsman, a Welshman and an Englishman on a plane with only one parachute.
She argues that the English do not understand why their Welsh, Scottish and Irish neighbours loathe them so much. “Like the Englishman in the first joke, they’re rather baffled by the hostility, while prolonging it with their arrogant attitudes.” She adds that Brits are even less popular abroad than they are with each other, and that the history of the British Isles is full of painful moments and terrible decisions that need to be faced.
Unloving nicknames and the rise of the far right
Margolyes lists nicknames for Brits from around the world, including “Brittunculi” (from a Roman tablet at Vindolanda, meaning “wretched little Brits”), “Poms” (used by Australians and New Zealanders), “rooinek” or “redneck” (the Boer nickname), “Limeys” (from the American term “lime-juicer”), “Inselaffen” (German for “island monkeys”), and “les rosbifs” (French for “roast beefs”).
She traces the rise of the far right in Britain back to Rotha Lintorn-Orman, who founded the first British fascist movement in 1923. Born in Kensington in 1895 into enormous wealth, Lintorn-Orman served as an ambulance driver in the first world war and was decorated for valour. After the war, she formed the British Fascisti, but more extreme fascist societies proliferated and her organisation died. “But fascism would live on – from Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts right through to Tommy Robinson.”
From Tory candidate to leftist
Margolyes reveals that she was once a Tory candidate. In May 1955, aged 14 and in the upper fourth at Oxford High School, she stood as the Conservative candidate in a school election. Her parents had always been Tories, and they worshipped Winston Churchill. She says she was an old-school Tory and “definitely pro capital punishment”.
She describes how she was turned towards socialism by two friends: Biddy Peppin’s father, a leftwing bank manager, and Liz Hodgkin, whose family were committed socialists. “Previously I had thought of communists as grim and humourless but boy, was I wrong. And so, eventually, this lady was for turning.” Her parents were surprised and shocked by her new politics, but she hopes they would have seen the light had they lived through the last 14 years of Conservative rule under Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak.
Not too late to save the nation
Margolyes says she understands that older people like things “the way they were”, and she hates upgrades. But she knows enough not to blame immigrants and asylum seekers. “The mess the country’s in has got nothing to do with them, but too many of us have been bamboozled into thinking it has.”
She criticises Nigel Farage, calling him “a nasty little turd floating about in our polluted waters” and “the Odious Niggle”. She says there is widespread fear that Farage could succeed to the leadership, and “the kingdom is teetering on the brink of annihilation”. But, she writes, “it’s not too late”.
She urges readers not to give up, and to remember that laughter is good medicine, ridicule and satire can change minds, and there’s always sex. “This is my middle finger to naysayers, Nigel Farage and everyone who says ‘whatever’. It’s time to be Great Britain again – or at least Better Britain.”
This is an edited extract from Miriam’s Full English by Miriam Margolyes, published by John Murray on 3 September at £25. Margolyes will discuss her book on a UK tour starting 1 September.
