Page 3 Profile: Ray Winstone, actor

Actor Ray Winstone walks past the Houses of Parliament on June 8, 2011 in London. (Getty)

Another film?

No. It seems the staple of British gangster films has decided to take a break from acting on the big-screen after recently appearing in the Danny Dyer flop, Run For Your Wife,

He has decided instead to flex his political muscles, entering into a debate on taxation policy with all the nuance of one of his hard-man characters. Britain is “being raped” by high taxes, he said in an interview with talkSPORT radio this weekend, and he's had just about enough of it.

He said what?!

Sparking instant condemnation, the 56-year-old former boxer told the show: “I can see myself leaving. I love this country but I've had enough. I don't see what we are being given back; I just see the country being raped.”

Expanding on his sweeping indictment of society, he added: “There are more holes in the roads than a tennis racket, we can't build hospitals and fire stations are closing.”

Is he actually going to leave?

Twitter encouragements aside – and there have been many – it will be a surprise if he heads for the Continent. Since making his name in the famously violent television play Scum, which portrayed the brutality of life inside a British borstal, Winstone has made a career out of the English, thoroughbred gangster. Even while playing Mr French in The Departed, the Londoner struggled to mask his thick cockney accent.