I was the only child in my class who had any experience of homosexuality or anything like that,' he said.

He said he supported Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. 'I rather like Nick Clegg. At the next election I will almost certainly vote Lib Dem. If all the people who liked them voted for them you could change politics overnight and we could have a proper three party system.'

When asked about Gordon Brown, Radcliffe said: 'Paul Merton said, and I agree with him, 'it's a tragedy that this man has waited all his life to do this job and now he finds out he can't do it'. I don't like the New Labour thing. I never experienced the optimism of New Labour, I was too young, but I hear everyone was up and it was fantastic. I've only seen the bad years of it.'