The sad loss of Rik Mayall.

I'll have you know I was very upset at the death of Rik Mayall. I enjoyed pretty much everything he did on TV, and in at least one movie. The one most tributes don't mention, The Dangerous Brothers, with Ade Edmondson, was marvellous.

Those early sketches eventually led to Alan B'Stard, a carefully depicted, vile, Tory politician. I seem not to have seen that series, maybe I was somewhere else, or something. But the scripts that I just looked at are... well...

Alan B'Stard: We hear an awful lot of leftie whingeing about NHS waiting lists. Well the answer's simple. Shut down the health service. Result? No more waiting lists. You see, in the good old days, you were poor, you got ill and you died. And yet these days people seem to think they've got some sort of God-given right to be cured. And what is the result of this sloppy socialist thinking? More poor people. In contrast, my policies would eradicate poor people, thereby eliminating poverty. And they say that we Conservatives have no heart.

Alan B'Stard: Who in this country was not moved when that great Englishman, Gazza, wept bitter tears at the World Cup last year? People thought that he was crying because he had been booked by the umpire and so would miss the final. But that was not the reason. He was crying at the thought that the Conservative government, the only government this young hero had ever known, was behind in the opinion polls.

Alan B'Stard: Why should we, the country that produced Shakespeare, Christopher Wren - and those are just the people on our banknotes for Christ's sake - cower down to the countries that produced Hitler, Napoleon, the Mafia, and the... the... The Smurfs!

And, a final prophecy...

Alan B'Stard: You know the really great thing about a fudged coalition is that neither of us need to carry out a single promise of our election manifestos.