Daily Telegraph
Stephen Frears: I'd watch Tony Blair being executed 'with great pleasure'
Stephen Frears, the director of the Oscar-winning film The Queen, has said that he would watch "with great pleasure" if Tony Blair were publicly executed.
Frears also directed The Deal, which centred on the 1994 Labour leadership pact between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
He said that the Prime Minister could regain the public's affection if he said that Mr Blair should be killed.
"If Gordon Brown suggested Tony Blair be publicly executed, he would be popular in Britain overnight," Frears told a German entertainment website.
Asked "Would you go and watch?", Frears replied: "With great pleasure. But closed eyes."
In another interview during the same promotional tour, he added: "All the people in Britain wish for at the moment is Tony Blair's head. Nothing else matters.
"If Gordon Brown would give them Blair's head, he could remain as Prime Minister: just chop it off and put it on a spike. Like in old times."
The director said that the Labour government was a "catastrophe". However, he said that Mr Brown was a "tragic hero".
"Tony Blair wasn’t that, he was simply dreadful," he said.
Peter Morgan, the writer of both The Queen and The Deal, is currently filming The Special Relationship, which examines Mr Blair's dealings with Bill Clinton and George W Bush, the former US presidents.
However, Frears is not involved in the third part of Morgan's trilogy about the Blair era.
"The truth is I can't bear him any more," Frears said. "Two movies about him, that should be enough."
The film is being directed by Richard Loncraine, whose work includes The Gathering Storm, the 2002 television film about Winston Churchill.
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