Time to chuck Wordpress away?

 I think so.

First, see if I can backup all the WordPress blog posts on WHUK, and redo the site on there with the right email address this time.

Your festival isn't as good as the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival!

Well, this is a picture from the 2012 festival, and the campers had my sympathy. But I think the modern festivals are not a patch on the old ones...

We had five days of brilliant sunshine in 1970. I think we did. It's quite possible I wouldn't have noticed if it was raining. Ahem.

Wednesday 26th August 1970

[Italicised, indented text has been lifted from Wikipedia.]

Judas Jump: A heavy progressive rock band featuring Andy Bown and Henry Spinetti of The Herd and Allan Jones of Amen Corner. 

Kathy Smith: A Californian singer-songwriter, signed to Richie Havens' label, "Stormy Forest", was well-received. 

Rosalie Sorrels: Another folk musician, accompanied by... 

David Bromberg: Bromberg was not on the bill, but he performed a popular set. 

Redbone: Native American pop/rock outfit.

I have no memory of those performers, and have not spotted any recordings of them that I can buy.

Kris Kristofferson: Performed a controversial set. Due to poor sound, the audience was unable to hear his set, and it appeared that they were jeering him. He was eventually booed off the stage.

This guy turned up at a Rock Festival and played Country and Western. Fair enough, some variety is needed, but he played it very, very badly. We damned well were booing him, because we could hear him.

Mighty Baby: psychedelic rock band.

Mighty Baby were a welcome relief from the Kristofferson performance. I met their drummer in Southsea once, and he was a really nice bloke.

Anyway, the only thing played on this day that I have a recording of is "Amazing Grace" as played very electrically by "The Great Awakening". That one still sends shivers down my spine! It's on the Message to Love CD.

Thursday 27th August 1970

Gary Farr: The brother of Rikki Farr [the festival compere], Gary had been the front man of the T-Bones, an R&B combo that featured Keith Emerson on keyboards. By this time, he had become a solo artist, and his only album, "Strange Fruit", for CBS Records, had been released in 1970.  

Supertramp: Their debut album had just been released a month prior to the festival.  

Andy Roberts' Everyone: [Wikipedia says nothing about this.] 

Howl: Scottish hard-rock band formerly known as "The Stoics", featuring Frankie Miller.  

Black Widow: a British band that wrote songs about Satan worship in their 1970 debut LP, "Sacrifice".  

The Groundhogs: English blues rockers. Very good, too.  

And finally we come to a performance that is actually available on CD! Terry Reid was good. I sort of remember quite lot of the music on the CD of his set when I play it. 

Terry Reid: The English singer performed with David Lindley. The set was released on CD in 2004.  

Gilberto Gil: Brazilian musician, playing to a frenzied audience.

I am not at all certain that I was frenzied...

Friday 28th August 1970

Fairfield Parlour: They had recorded a single called "Let The World Wash In", released under the name "I Luv Wight", which they hoped would become the festival's theme song. They had also previously recorded as The Kaleidoscope.

But "Amazing Grace" was played every day, at startup, and that's the one we remember.

Arrival: Their set, which included a Leonard Cohen cover, was well received. 

Lighthouse: This popular Canadian act performed two sets at the festival. 

The Taste album, "Live at the Isle of Wight" is splendid, with Rory Gallagher playing in his usual amazing guitar style. 

Taste: Legendary guitarist Rory Gallagher had a blues trio from 1968 to 1970. This was one of their final shows, which was filmed and recorded. An album, Live at the Isle of Wight, was released of their set in 1971. 

Tony Joe White's splendid set is out there on CD, but very expensive. The tracks in question are half of one CD of a four CD set. Great drumming from Cozy Powell, too. 

Tony Joe White: Performed hits including Polk Salad Annie; his drummer was Cozy Powell. Tony Joe's entire set was released in 2006 on "Swamp Music" a Rhino Handmade collection of his Monument recordings. 

Chicago: Their set, including "25 or 6 to 4," "Beginnings" and "I'm a Man," was a highlight of the night.

Family: Mysterious absence of information on Wikipedia...

Procol Harum: Frontman Gary Brooker commented that it was a cold night.

Voices of East Harlem: Their set received several standing ovations. Not actually a band, but a bunch of singing school children from Harlem. They had one studio album. 

There are apparently a couple of tracks from Cactus on a compilation LP, but I have not been able to find it, and have nothing to play it on. 

Cactus: Two songs from their set were featured on the LP The First Great Rock Festivals Of The Seventies. 

Mungo Jerry were there but decided not to play.

It was way past their bedtime, apparently.

Saturday 29th August 1970

John Sebastian: Performed an 80-minute set, during which former Lovin' Spoonful guitarist Zal Yanovsky, made a surprise guest appearance. 

Shawn Phillips: American folk musician performed an impromptu solo set following John Sebastian. 

Lighthouse (second set) 

Joni Mitchell: Played a controversial set; Following her performance of "Woodstock", a hippie named Yogi Joe interrupted her set to make a speech about Desolation Row. [...] After the crowd quieted down, Mitchell closed her set with "Big Yellow Taxi". [1] 

Tiny Tim: His rendition of "There'll Always Be an England" can be seen in the film Message to Love. [2] 

Miles Davis: A DVD of his complete set was released in 2004. [3] 

Ten Years After: British blues rockers performing what was basically a reproduction of their famous Woodstock set. Highlights included "I'm Going Home" and "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes," which was featured in "Message to Love". [4] 

Emerson, Lake & Palmer: This was their second gig. "Pictures at an Exhibition", which featured the Moog synthesizer was the centerpiece of their historic set. Commercially released as "Emerson, Lake and Palmer Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970" in 1997. [5] 

The Doors: Their set was shrouded in darkness due to Jim Morrison's unwillingness to have movie spotlights on the band. Their performances of "The End" and "When the Music's Over" are featured in Message to Love. [6] 

The Who: Their entire set, including the rock opera Tommy, was released in 1996 on CD (Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970). [...] [7] 

Sly & the Family Stone: The showstoppers of Woodstock performed to a tired audience on the early morning of Sunday. However, the audience woke up for spirited renditions of "I Want to Take You Higher", "Dance to the Music" and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", which featured Sly on guitar. Prior to their encore, another political militant decided it was time to make a speech, and the booing audience started to throw beer cans onto the stage. Freddie Stone was hit by a flying can and an angry Sly decided to skip the encore. He did promise a second appearance, but this never occurred. [7] 

Melanie: This Woodstock veteran played a well-received set as the sun rose. Prior to her set, Keith Moon of The Who offered her some moral support and encouragement. Not until afterwards did Melanie realize who he was. Her performance of her own song, 'What Have They Done to my Song Ma' was included in a 2010 French documentary, spanning the 1970 and 2010 I.O.W. festivals, called 'From Wight to Wight' and first shown on TV station ARTE, on 30/07/2010. [8]

[1] John Sebastian, Shawn Philips and Lighthouse were not especially memorable, except that I remember thinking Sebastian and Yanovsky's lovey-dovey reunion, and the "borrowing a guitar from the audience" schtick were rather contrived. And all the stuff about what happened while Joni Mitchell was on seemed remote to those who were a hundred yards from the stage. Frankly, a lot of the stuff you read about all the angst going on at this festival was a surprise to those of us who were there. I have the recording of "Big Yellow Taxi"; it's not really rock, I suppose, but a good song.

[2] Tiny Tim was a tremendous surprise. We were more or less resigned to ignoring him, but he was fantastically entertaining and amusing. "There'll Always Be An England" [on the CD "Message to Love"] went down really well, and those of us who were, ahem, enhancing our consciousness were delighted when a hot air balloon took off behind the stage at the end of his set. I really wish the whole of his set was available.

[3] There's some of what Miles Davis and his friends did on "Message to Love", or you can do as I did, and extract his entire set from the DVD "Miles Davis: a different kind of blue". I did it for the sake of completing my collection; I think it stinks.

[4] It's annoying that all I can find of Ten Years After's set is two tracks on "Message to Love", as I was a fan of theirs, and this set was great.

[5] Emerson Lake and Palmer's second gig is an excellent CD, which I have, naturally.

[6] The Doors played a lot better than most critics say, and I have the CD to prove it.

[7] If I was still awake, it's odd that I don't remember any booing or can throwing, but there's an awful lot of exaggerated writing about this sort of thing, that 99% of those who were there say they were not aware of.

[8] I have yet to find this recording...

Sunday 30th August 1970

Good News: American acoustic duo. [1] 

Kris Kristofferson (Second set) [2] 

Ralph McTell: Despite an enthusiastic reception from the audience, he did not play an encore, and the stage was cleared for Donovan. [3] 

Heaven: English answer to Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears [4] 

Free: Their set list consisted of "Ride on a Pony", "Mr. Big", "Woman", "The Stealer", "Be My Friend", "Fire & Water", "I'm a Mover", "The Hunter", their classic hit "All Right Now", and concluded with a cover of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads". [5]

Donovan: He first performed an acoustic set, and then an electric set with his band Open Road. [6]

 Pentangle: British folk combo. A German woman interrupted their set to deliver a political message to the audience. [7]

The Moody Blues: A popular British act and veteran of the 1969 festival. Their rendition of "Nights in White Satin" can be seen in Message to Love : Their set is featured on Threshold of A Dream Live at the Isle of Wight 1970. [8]

 Jethro Tull: Their set is featured on Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970. During Sunday morning the audience were entertained by a rehearsal/sound-check by Jethro Tull. [9]

Jimi Hendrix: The star of the festival performed in the early hours of 31 August with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Billy Cox on bass. His set has been released on CD and video in various forms. In the beginning Hendrix had technical problems, which at one point during "Machine Gun" involved the security's radio signal interfering with his amp's output. David Gilmour from Pink Floyd has confirmed that he watched this Hendrix concert.[10] 

Joan Baez: Her version of "Let It Be" can be seen in the film Message to Love. [11] 

At this point, we left to get the ferry, as we had to be in college, in Liverpool the next morning. We did it, but I have no idea how... 

Leonard Cohen: Backed by his band The Army, his tune "Suzanne" can be seen in the film Message to Love. In October 2009 audio and video (both DVD and Blu-ray) recording of his set, Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 was released. [12]
Richie Havens: The musician who opened Woodstock closed this festival with a set during the morning of 31 August. As Havens performed his version of "Here Comes the Sun", a cloudy dawn broke, so he changed the lyrics to "Here Comes the Dawn". Havens' set, which is available as an audience recording, also included "Maggie's Farm" by Bob Dylan, "Freedom", "Minstrel from Gault" and the Hare Krishna mantra. [13]

[1] I don't remember anything about Good News.

[2] Apparently the festival organisers felt Kris Kristofferson's reception on the first day was jolly unfair of the audience, and they let him on again. This was met with sullen indifference by the audience.

[3] I can't remember what Ralph McTell did, but I expect it included his miserable "Streets of London".

[4] Heaven? Whatever they did to answer Chicago etc was evidently not memorable.

[5] Free were splendid. All that seems to be available from their set is "All Right Now" on the CD "Message to Love". It's not enough...

[6] I've got an audience recording of Donovan's set. It was fine, if you liked that sort of thing. The sound quality of the recordings leaves a lot to be desired.

[7] Pentangle? Not Rock, but whatever. I don't remember and there seem to be no recordings.

[8] The Moody Blues were fine, and I have the catchily titled CD "Threshold of A Dream Live at the Isle of Wight 1970" in my collection.

[9] The CD "Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970" of Jethro Tull's performance confirms that my memory of them was right: they were brilliant.

[10] Hendrix was the main reason we went to the festival. We were not disappointed, and anyone who tells you it was not a good performance is silly. And a little suspect. Thank goodness this was recorded. I can confirm that I did not know Dave Gilmour was there.

[11] As soon as Hendrix had finished, we set off for the ferry. It was already quite a long way into Monday, and we were supposed to be in Liverpool.

[12] We could hear this as we tramped towards the ferry. At the time, I was not a fan of Leonard Cohen. These days I am, and this CD is very good.

[13] I didn't hear any of this, even at a great distance, and I have not bothered to try to track down the audience recording.

It has taken me ages to describe these five days. I hope it was interesting to you. I had a splendid time...

David Cameron's Book of Bastards - 28

I can no longer call this my secret diary, as Samantha forgot to pack it for me, and has been reading it. Still, now I'm back from my triumph over Europe, at least I can carry on writing in it. She said it was "jolly nice", which is dashed decent of her.

My speech in this video says all that needs to be said, and I cleverly prevented any "reporters" from asking their clever trick questions by leaving, and making them look as if they couldn't keep up with my superior intellect! 

Britain continues to be made to look Great by me! It is true that none of the leaders I spoke with, some of them for more than a minute, seemed to understand what I was saying, but that will not stop me making a brilliant success of my clever plan.

EU migrants must be prevented from claiming in-work benefits for four years, the same way that we are making sure our own people will have to stand on their own two feet, by removing the foolish safety net of "benefits".

Clearly, we must be fair to everyone. Those with no feet will be proud to stand alongside us in this!

I told the little reporter people, “It has been a long night and we have discussed some very important subjects, but above all I am delighted that the process of British reform and renegotiation and the referendum that we are going to hold – that process is now properly under way … we have started that process.”

Lots of people seem to think I can't get the whole process of reform of the entire Lisbon Agreement done by 2017, when we will have our in out in out in out in out in out referendum. They say it can't be done in time.

Even that common Farage fellow doesn't seem to understand my determination to continue to do impossible things. Champagne time, more later!

Bad combover championship.

He's not fooling anyone but himself, Prince Charles isn't.

I expect that looks lovely in the mirror, from in front, but one's footman ought to have told one about the bald dome at the back. It's nearly as bad as mine.

Perhaps HRH should hide it with a sort of crown thingy?

 In case you can't tell whose fat neck and bald patch these are, it's Gideon George Osborne. 

Not a very convincing attempt to comb the hair at the front back over it.

Here, however, is the current World Combover Champion.

He sports a parting on each side, from which the hair above is swept up, forward, back... it's probably about ten feet long.

The Dear Leader's Diary, 27th bit.

It appears that I am going to have to have something done about Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who has been going round without permission, saying that there is something wrong with my government giving itself the power to listen to all the phone calls in the country, check every web page everyone looks at, read all the texts and emails everyone sends, and everything else they ever do. Surely, this is the very least we can do, in order to prevent anyone from committing acts of terrorism? I have a God-given duty as a Christian to protect every one of the people of my country from everything they might want to do that I don't approve of. This is how I protect their freedom, and is totally non-negotiable until I change my mind.

People are still saying silly things about me winning my election victory. They are pretending that I am to blame for what they call unfairness in the First Past The Post system, which is absurd. Surely they remember that when they had the chance to choose between this fine system, that has given the country our wonderful new government, and a fairly badly thought out system selected carefully from all the much better ways of voting, they didn't choose the useless AV system? Moaning about all the other ways of doing Proportional Representation isn't going to stop me telling them they had their only chance, and now we can not change.

I have found out that Mr Gove and Mrs May have tricked me into seeming not to care about human rights, which of course, I do. My solution to the problem is obviously far superior to theirs. Instead of pulling out of the European Court of Human Rights, we will just give ourselves the right to ignore it, while saying human rights matter very much to us. That will make everyone happy.

The Dear Leader's Diary - Episode 26

Everything is going according to the Long Term Plan, which was given to me by my close friend Barry Obama. I was quite surprised to be Prime Minister again, without needing any help from Clegg's Awkward Brigade this time. They lost lots of seats, of course, and I wasn't at all surprised by that, as their supporters all spotted that they had been made to look like idiots by Clegg, who did a brilliant job of pretending to oppose us in 2010.

I've put my Long Term Attack on Human Rights on the back burner (in one of my kitchens, LOL!) for now, and will quietly sneak it into one of the other bills a bit later.

The things I am going to do to the European Community, to improve it include

• Completing the single market. (George says this matters)
• Reducing EU red tape, so businesses are not held back by silly "Elf and Safety" rules, and can make bigger profits without worrying about their staff.
• Making sure that Eurozone decisions do not over-ride the interests of non-Eurozone countries. That's us, of course, but it's also the good old USA. Barry is very keen on something he calls Tea-Tip, which I think is the TTIP agreement that is so important to the big businesses in America. It's business, so it matters.
• Allowing national parliaments to reject EU laws. 
• Reforming the budget, so we stop giving so much to farmers. Most of them will still vote for us anyway, because their parents did.
• Opting out of any commitment to closer union. Britain is a leading nation, and just being part of Team Europe makes us look silly. We need to be part of Team USA!

The Dear Leader's Speech - Episode 25

Frankly, today should have been an even greater triumph for me than it was. As every schoolchild should know, and will know under my clever plans for the educational system of this great nation of mine, I am the fifth cousin, twice removed, of her majesty the queen, and a direct illegitimate descendent, via five generations of women, from King William IV. As you can see, he was almost as devastatingly handsome as me. However, I don't mind sharing out privileges, as long as they go to the deserving, hard working, rich people I like to mix with, so I allowed my cousin to wear her expensive crown, and purr her way through the speech I wrote.

Unfortunately, I have included so many important things in my speech that it has been necessary, temporarily, to drop my planned destruction of the Human Rights Act that was so carelessly inflicted on my One Nation at the end of the war. This improvement, giving my grateful subjects a proper Bill of Rights, as demanded by the vast crowds who followed me everywhere during my triumphant re-election campaign, has been put on the back burner in one of my many kitchens, but will reappear when we have worked out how to explain it in a way that everyone will vote for.

Critics have said, and it shows how tolerant I am, that they are still at liberty to say such undemocratic things, that I will be likely to make the question for the in out in out in out referendum on Europe so complex that some of the simpler kind of English
people, who have not benefited from going to Eton, will not be able to comprehend the three split infinitives and two self contradictions in the question, and will accidentally vote 110% for what I want, which is for us to stay in Europe, and be in charge of all decision making, instead of voting the way our friends in UKIP would prefer.

Knowing that they will not have any way to prevent our much needed further cuts in the wildly over-generous benefits the state provides, the few remaining Liberal Democrats will not like my Full Employment and Welfare Benefits Bill, which will somehow force the creation of two million new jobs and five million new apprenticeships, but at the same time reduce the maximum possible benefits to £23,000 and ensure nobody can claim them. Especially not the young, who will have to "earn or learn" and won't be able to claim housing benefit, leaving it to be claimed by older people, who are much better at passing it on to their hard working landlords.

The sun is well over the yard-arm now, so I will complete these notes after I have celebrated with a case or two of properly expensive champagne with George and a few of my other millionaire chums...

The Dear Leader's Secret Diary - 24

This seems as good a place as any for me to collect a few of the splendid jokes I have heard, ready for use by me, at those events where we keep the proles out, and don't have to be politically correct. Here's somebody called Sandi Toksvig OBE, a pleasant young lady who has started the totally unnecessary "Women's Equality Party", talking about my friend Nigel "the Führager" Farage...

‘I watched the count for South Thanet and I found myself cheering for the Tory candidate,’ she told the audience. ‘I hate Farage for that, I really do. He made me cheer a Tory, the bastard.’

She then went on to refer to the testicle the Ukip leader lost to cancer, joking about what Farage and Hitler have in common: ‘Farage kept having pictures of him defaced with Hitler moustaches. I mean he’s not really like Hitler. Okay, he has a German wife, he hates foreigners, he only has one testicle, and he was defeated.’

I practised this one on Sam, who seemed somewhat impressed. She seems to think jokes about cancer can not be funny, for some reason.

And then there's this photograph, which clearly demonstrates that Boris has no clue how to play that violin.

David Cameron's Secret Diary - Episode 23

This is terrible! In spite of my getting the finest advice available, see above, and being considerably more clever than anyone else I have ever met, something has gone badly wrong with my plan to sort out Europe. 

While I was preparing my in-out in-out master-plan to keep us at the heart of Europe, by separating us from it, and getting rid of all the Human Rights and Green crap, a couple of undemocratic foreigners have effectively sidelined my clever move. How am I to make it look as if I have brilliantly reorganised things, if these unimportant people from minor countries are allowed to sabotage me? I am going to write their names in my Book of Bastards. Surely, common sense demands that instead of all negotiating together at meetings I could have attended, these two should have listened properly, with due respect, to whatever it was I was telling them, that would have helped them to realise I can run the EU all on my own?

They have made a serious mistake with their back room deal, and it is going to take a lot of time, photo-opportunities, and secret briefings of important newspapers like the Sun, to get things back on the track that I, and I alone, am determined to deliver, so that once again, everyone in the UK will love me.

As I have said before, and will keep saying, there will be ups and downs – you’ll hear one day this is possible, the next day something else is impossible. In out, in out, up down, up down. I'll show them I'm not mad!

My Jolly Secret Diary, part 22, by DC.

I am beginning to suspect people have been reading this, my Secret Diary, with a complete disregard for my absolute right to privacy. So, if you are looking at this document on my private, personal iPad, whomsoever you may happen to be, rest assured that I shall get my friends with the impressive office in a certain Gloucestershire town (but I'm carefully not saying which!) to find out who you are. I have quietly given them the go-ahead to look at every computer in this wonderful free country of ours, except mine, obviously. I'm sure they will get on with that just as soon as they have finished checking all the pictures they took with all the webcams they accessed. And of course, they will be careful to delete any pictures of underage girlies they may have accidentally taken, as soon as they have all examined them carefully.

I recently found that there was a jolly clever article about how nobody had the sense to challenge our narrative at election time, and the way we pretended everything was Labour's fault, even when it was actually the fault of some members of our administration like poor, silly little Clegg, or something over which we had no control at all. Blaming Labour for the banking collapses, Bernie Madoff, inflation and all the other things they had no control of was a brilliant master-stroke of presentation, which yours truly is proud of. (Of course, Lynton thinks it was him, but only I know just how clever I am.) I will have to get this Bernal fellow removed from the internet, the way I did with all the "promises, vows, and pledges" people imagine I made.

The picture of the secret building in Cheltenham Gloucestershire has reminded me that this Bernal chap is also part of a secret cabal, "academics" they call themselves, as if that meant they know more than me. They are writing ridiculous "open letters" about how I make the law which suggest that I should waste Parliamentary time with discussions of all the important things that are done in that building. This idea that I, the Prime Minister, can't make up a law all on my own, is deeply unpatriotic, and I think I will have these "academics" sacked and deported. They must think they have rights!

The Dear Leader's Diary - Episode 21

Well, here we are! Another week of our wonderful United Kingdom's new-found democracy, rewarding all hard-working families and not those other people, is almost at a close. An awful lot of lazy slackers are saying I wouldn't have won the election by a huge majority of four, if Rupert Murdoch's newspapers had not all, completely independently, given me their support. The fact is, of course, that I have never even met Mr Murdoch. But the Vote-OK group, chaired by Lord Astor (Samantha's lovely step-father) made it their business to go out and campaign for me in several key seats, where thousands of hunt workers have had ten years without their rightful jobs.  

Horrid TV interviewers keep asking me if hunting foxes and watching them be ripped to shreds is my favourite sport, as if they hadn't even heard of West Villa, or is it Aston Ham? Of course, I outfoxed them, by cleverly answering a different question, and saying I hadn't been on a horse in years! It's not difficult to get these people to stop asking the wrong questions, as most of them have never been near Eton. As the survey above, in a tabloid newspaper that Mr Murdoch doesn't own yet, shows, 20% want fox hunting back, and that's nearly as many as voted to get me back. The Queen's Speech will include the removal of the evil Labour ban on huntin' and I'm sure she will purr when she sees it!

David Cameron's Secret Diary - 20

I am once again totally bloody pumped by how much fun all this is, now that we can do what we jolly well like to the country without that silly child, Clegg, slowing us down and arguing about everything. Not that we ever let him get his way, of course, though he quite often thought he had.

Didn't we have fun, George and I, choosing which jobs we would give to the oiks who hadn't been to Eton and Oxford! What were their parents thinking of? Your children will never get anywhere, if you don't buy them a better education than the peasants get. We lowered education standards for the unwashed hard-working people in our previous government by letting Gove be in charge of it.

I think people will be impressed by how rapidly Gove messes up the Justice ministry as well. We didn't give him the job because we thought he could do it, but because we wanted to make him wear ridiculous clothes!

Only the other day, I quite rightly said Lord JCB was being jolly sensible in saying we should get out of Europe as fast as possible, and he gave our Party lots of dosh. And now, all my super friends in the CBI are saying, quite rightly, that it's vital we should stay in. They are jolly sensible, and I would like them to give the Party huge amounts of moolah to help us deliver. Britain deserves the best government money can buy!

There seems to be a dreadfully negative attitude amongst many of the hoi polloi, lately. A lot of them seem to think that in spite of the huge 24% of the voters enthusiastically supporting us, the tiny 76% who were against us have some sort of right to try to get us removed from our rightful place. And that is why I am going to take away human rights from these foolish sub-humans. We can't tolerate that sort of thing! Goodness me, if we go letting any old Tom, Richard, or Harry say things online, we will soon be in a shocking mess. I must make up some sort of internet censorship system for GCHQ to use against these anarchist extremists. I'm very clever, so it will only take five minutes.

The Dear Leader's Diary - Episode 19

I'm getting jolly fed up with all the lazy doctors and nurses! Look, it's perfectly simple. Do as I say. Work seven days a week for less money, or start complaining. And if you do complain, I will say you are no good, and some of my friends will be given your work to do. Their companies will get more money from the taxpayer than we give the NHS, obviously. But they have to make a profit, unlike you lazy lot, so their shareholders will be happy, and their directors will be able to give money to my party, to keep us in power. And it will be your fault. So there. Enough said, that's that sorted out, and I will move on the the next thing that I have to make work perfectly.

[What the enemy says.]

Next, I am going to get the Queen to read out a list of the things I am going to do to everyone else. After she has purred her way through that, and all the MPs have said how clever I am, and voted in favour of the Plan, we can roll up our sleeves, get bloody pumped, and charge into action against Europe.

My friend Lord Bamford, who has given my party about seven million pounds (a trivial amount for important chaps like us two, but quite helpful) has told me to get us out of Europe pronto. It turns out, he's down to his last three billion pounds, thanks to European Red Tape getting in the way, and forcing him to have silly safety measures slowing his factories down. Now, why on earth should we let Brussels beaurocrats slow down the wealth creation of dear Lord Bamford? He's got so much more than even I have, and some of that must surely be doing a wonderful job of trickling down from whatever country he keeps it in!

An observation about prime ministers' eyes.

Don't worry, your Dear Leader will be back soon. I just want to bring back a blast from the past, about prime ministers, that I first mentioned in 2008.

Prime ministers all have strange eyes.

There were, obviously, prime ministers before Grocer Heath, but I start with him because I found this picture disturbing. Ignore, if you can, the stupid slogan behind him. His right eye is looking straight at you, but his left eye is looking at something above you, and a bit to your right.

Sorry if I frightened your children, but we have to examine this one. She's attempting to look cute, with that tilt of the head, but it doesn't hide the disturbing eyes. Again, the right eye is looking at you. That left eye is doing the same as Grocer's, checking the thing hovering over your right shoulder. You may be in more danger than you think... 

Don't look round now!

Here we see John Major, a man with a very strange upper lip, squinting. He's trying to hide the way his right eye isn't actually looking at you, unlike his left eye.

You may be tempted to wonder whether Mrs Currie saw both of his eyes wide open, but that way lies madness. And a court case if you say too much.

Besides, the next picture is a shocker...

It is hard to convince oneself that this man is sane. I'm not even going to try. He was a Tory at Oxford, and has told big lies to start a war. Which of those eyes do you think is looking at you? 

Still, if you want an example of how to get even wealthier while messing the country up, you would have a long way to go to find a better one.

Yes, I do know that Gordon Brown is blind in his left eye, due to an injury playing rugby. I'm sure I should be very slightly sympathetic about it, as he never made a fuss about it. But it's just a game, rugby, right?

[I live in Wales, and I would like to make it quite clear that that was a joke. Rugby is extremely serious and important, as everyone knows.]

And that brings us to the current incumbent. He looks at the camera with his left eye, while the right gazes into the distance, in search of more of your property to privatise. Notice, too, that he is doing his sex-doll mouth expression.

He has two other settings for his mouth: the one where he pretends to have no lips at all, and the one where he puts his tongue between his lips. 

In the first of these three, he is in the middle of telling us that he has lowered the national debt from £8 billion to £1.5 trillion, for which we are expected to thank him. In the second, he is trying to remember which football club he is supposed to pretend to support, and in the third, he is waiting for a carefully vetted supporter to finish asking the question they have been given to read out.

No, I don't like any of the people on this page. 

How did you guess?

The Dear Leader's Diary - Epistle 18

I've had a simply super weekend, chillaxing with the right sort of people, the odd case of champagne, and I'm bloody pumped! All the things I am going to announce this week to my adoring citizens are lined up ready, and I will be able to make long, eloquent sound-bites about them. I really am made to rule this

country, apart from Scotland, where my little friend Nicola is happy to help. 

She wants another referendum and lots of extra powers, but basically, she melts when she sees me, and I can just walk all over her. All it takes is just the right pressure in a hand-shake, and I'm rather well known for that. I use the one that makes the Queen purr, and Nicola just smiles and issues another series of demands that she must surely realise I won't remember after I have had them removed from the internet. I'm surprised nobody has noticed that I can do that!

Politics is easy! I was made for it.

Later today, I will be speaking to some doctors in a place called the Wet Midlands, and tell them that I will let George give the NHS "at least £8 billion a

year by 2020". I'm still always amazed that something like that gets accepted without any argument. It doesn't mean they will get £8 billion in any of the years up to 2020, and after another five years everyone will have forgotten there was a National Health Service, anyway.

Well, there will be, but it will be safe in our hands long before then. As long as I keep assuring people it isn't being privatised, I can hand chunks of it over to my friends for much less than it is worth, plus the proper level of donations to the Conservative Party, and we can all make massive profits from it. People are not even going to notice that even if we do give it £8 billion, or any other even bigger amount, from the taxpayers, it will all just go straight to the shareholders. And that's how a health service should work!

I shall tell them that there is nothing that embodies the spirit of One Nation coming together - nothing that working people depend on more - than the NHS, and get the usual enthusiastic applause from the audience the local party branch has provided for me. A good day's work, and I shall be entitled to chillax with some more Bollinger. 

The Dear Leader's Diary - 17

It makes me bloody pumped up with pride, when I think how tremendously wonderful I am. All on my own, with no help from the media, I got everyone in the country to vote for me, apart from a tiny group of about 76% who were unable to understand how brilliant I am.

In completely unrelated 
news, apparently Rupert Murdoch, the very important media magnate that I am not influenced by in any way, says that my new cabinet appointments are "surprisingly good", in his completely independent opinion. He's quite right, of course. 

And here's a super example! Little Nicky Morgan has proved that she is a far better minister than that oik, Gove. Sacking failing head teachers, and at the same time cutting the budgets of council schools, can't fail to improve education for all the children of hard working families who can afford our excellent academies. Quite sensibly, she didn't waste time finding out what the actual statistics are, but immediately told Andrew Marr in no uncertain way, that what we have done to education is the only sensible way to procede. After all, any hard working family that wants the best for its children will send them to Eton.

Michael Gove has been working jolly hard, sleeves rolled up, and bloody pumped as well, which makes me like him even more, since he was made Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor by me, last weekend.  Instead of saying something bad people would latch onto, like "scrapping the Human Rights Act", he very sensibly said, "We’ll be seeking to ensure that human rights are enhanced and preserved by modernising and reforming the framework of rights in this country". Gove and I both feel the Human Rights Act and the judgements of the Strasbourg Court on things like prisoner voting have actually been harmful to the cause of human rights in this country. And that's what matters! Getting people to think we are modernising and reforming, nice, positive words that the plebs will be convinced by. Fortunately, nobody has noticed they will have almost no rights left unless they can afford to go to court.