'Disastrous': Stephen Fry tells LBC that first 100 days of Keir Starmer's government have been 'a mess'

10 October 2024, 12:22 | Updated: 10 October 2024, 12:56

Stephen Fry has told LBC that the first 100 days of the Labour government have been "disastrous".

Actor and comedian Fry, 67, told LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr that it was "a mystery that [Labour] could have allowed themselves to get into this mess."

A poll released yesterday suggested that Keir Starmer was now as unpopular as Nigel Farage, with government embattled over a row about gifts to senior ministers, as well as complaints of a planned cut to universal winter fuel payments to pensioners.

The government, which came to power in July after 14 years in opposition, is set to deliver its first Budget later this month, and has warned of a "black hole" in the public finances.

This contrasts with the mood before the General Election, when Starmer talked of a "decade of national renewal".

Fry, who was previously a longtime Labour supporter and even appeared in a party political broadcast in 1993, said Labour's current plight seemed "extraordinary... because you think you're in opposition, you've got a bit of time to get things together."

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"You're not sure when an election would be called. It was slightly earlier than anybody imagined, as we know, the famous rain swept scenes in Downing Street. But the one thing you do is you say, ‘Look at what happened.

"Look at what happened with Boris [Johnson] and everyone else, the Spads, the Special Advisors, the Civil Service, Dominic Cummings, all these people. Look at the infighting. Look at even with the previous Labour governments. Look at the bad blood between [Tony] Blair and [Gordon] Brown towards the end and so on. Let's make sure the first thing we do, even before policy is process.

"That's what Blair always used to say. And so, let's make the process clear and transparent and honest and friendly and efficient.’ And instead, they do the opposite. I mean, what is it? Is it just plain human susceptibility to whatever it is that power does to people?

Addressing Andrew, he said: "You've met powerful people all your life, longer than I have, but I've met enough to wonder at it, because so many of them in social situations when they're not working are really remarkably charming people and very intelligent and very insightful…"

Fry said that Labour had also suffered "policy hiccups," and predicted that ministers would "start talking about the blob before long", in reference to a derogatory term used by some on the right for civil servants.

"Because obviously the Treasury and Civil Servants will say, ‘well, I understand, Minister, you want to do this, but here are the problems’, and they go ‘all I hear from you are problems.’

"And part of me thinks, as everyone likes to do, what idiots they are."

James O'Brien wonders what has led Starmer to become as unpopular as Farage

"Part of me thinks, well, we lay off our own laziness, our own moral indolence and untidiness and desire to have two things at once on politicians, so we can blame them and think ourselves fine.

"We want to pay less for petrol, but we also want to talk about how important it is not to have petrol, and so we can blame politicians.’"

Fry, who is well-known as a Remainer, also took aim at Brexit in his interview with Andrew.

He took Austrian citizenship in 2024, which he was able to do because of a new rule in the country that allows people whose family was persecuted by the Nazis to become citizens.

He told Andrew: "My grandmother was Austrian and it's partly a finger up to Brexit. Obviously, to have a Schengen group passport is a good thing."