The other Christmas speech: Who needs the Queen?

Channel 4's alternative seasonal address has become a festive tradition for non-Royalists. We preview this year's offering from Jamie Oliver and look back at his 12 predecessors

2005 Jamie Oliver

Sitting amid a large pile of boxes marked "Turkey Twangers", Oliver holds forth. "What turkey will you be cooking this year? For me there's only one option and that's get your turkey from as far away as possible. It's pre-portioned, pre-seasoned, pre-shaped. We're all too busy to be mucking around making real food."

This doesn't sound like the Jamie Oliver we know and love, so there is relief when it emerges his diatribe, and the previous sequence in which he cooks up a school Christmas dinner of cheese slices on white bread and frozen Swiss roll, were just nightmares. "So what's my real Christmas message? If I could have one wish for 2006, it would be to make sure that we really look after the beautiful kids of this country and truly make the nation a healthier, cleverer, happier place."

1993 Quentin Crisp

The first Alternative Queen's Speech was delivered 12 years ago by an alternative queen, the gay writer and humourist Quentin Crisp, who used the platform to call on Britons to move to America, as well as attacking monosyllabic youth culture.

"Departing from tradition, I will not speak for myself, Britain, or the strangely misnamed Commonwealth. Instead I will speak of America, because it is the land where I think, despite all its faults, the best of you should be," Crisp said. "The American young are violent because they have no inner life. They have no inner life because they have no thoughts. They have no thoughts because they know no words and they know no words because they never converse.

"Though I regret all this, it does not lessen my love for America. My advice to the British is - pack tonight. Set out tomorrow like the Portuguese explorers of old for the islands of the blessed. We are waiting for you."

1994 Jesse Jackson

Speaking as part of Channel 4's "Black Christmas", the American civil rights campaigner attacked John Major's government for failing to tackle racism. He said that in Britain "the richest of countries, economic insecurity is breeding fear. But fear breeds intolerance and intolerance breeds violence ... Violence has been meted out to talented young men in your country. Rolan Adams, Stephen Lawrence, Rohit Duggal, Quddus Ali, all of them born and bred in Britain, all killed by people who objected to their presence in Britain, based on the colour of their skin [Ali was in fact not killed but severely injured]. The lives of too many of our young people are going to waste. The oppressed must engage in sane, sober, sensitive and disciplined resistance to their oppression."

1995 Brigitte Bardot

The former film actress turned animal rights campaigner praised the UK for its commitment towards animals. "I am sincerely delighted to be able to talk for all those who do not have the power of speech - those animals to whom I have dedicated my life, my energy, my fame and my fortune. Brigitte Bardot exists today only to serve the suffering animals of the world."

She paid special tribute to Jill Phipps, the woman killed during a protest over veal exports, whose funeral she had attended earlier that year, referring to her as "my fighting sister, to whom all my thoughts go this Christmas".

1996 Rory Bremner

Bremner imitated the Princess of Wales, copying her hesitant speech and shy glances in a spoof chat show called The Time, The Palace. "Before there was just one Royal Family plodding along. Now you have a choice, the official one and mine. 'Classic Royal' and 'New Royal Lite'. You can take me out of the Royal Family, but you can't take the Royal Family out of me. Take the Budget - the Daily Mirror got the whole thing the day before and didn't run it. Now if I'd been seen in a Range Rover down a slip road with Kenneth Clarke, I think they would have found a way to run that ... I'm still big, it's the monarchy that has got small."

1997 Margaret Gibney

The 13-year-old from the Shankhill area of Belfast impressed the then Channel 4 chief executive Michael Jackson with her letter-writing campaign to 150 world leaders calling for an end to war. She had made headlines earlier in 1997 when she was invited to meet Tony Blair at Downing Street after writing to tell him she had only experienced one year of peace in her life. She also met Hillary Clinton in October that year. In her speech, Margaret said her generation was already carving out a better future in Northern Ireland, because it was not weighed down by old grievances and hatreds. "We make friends, no matter what community they come from," she said.

1998 Doreen and Neville Lawrence

The parents of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence, murdered in 1993, talked of their battle for justice and the need to strengthen race crime laws in Britain.

Mrs Lawrence said: "What I would like to see is for the Government not to pay lip service, as the previous Government did, but to take this opportunity to have in place ... laws against racist murder and racist crimes."

Mr Lawrence added: ''If we lose this opportunity it will be like my son has died in vain.''

1999 Ali G

"Booyakasha! There's a new king in town and his name is Ali G. Recognise!" Thus spake the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, at the peak of his character's fame, adding: "Now I send out respect to the Royal Family. Big up yourself Elizabeth, shout going out to the Windsor massive. But if you has only switched over from the Queen's Speech, me understand. She ain't as fit as she used to be."

2000 Helen Jeffries

Helen Jeffries is the mother of 14-year-old Zoe, who became the youngest victim of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease when she died in October 2000. When Ms Jeffries, who had allowed television cameras to film her daughter's final days, was invited to deliver the Alternative Queen's Speech, she demanded answers. She said: "I feel like somebody's killed my child and I want to know who's done it. I lie awake at night thinking about what the politicians have done and I wonder if they can sleep at night. Do they feel the anger that I feel? Do they feel remorse? I hope they do."

2001 Genelle Guzman

The 32-year-old Trinidadian was the last person to be pulled from under the rubble of the World Trade Centre, one of only five people to be rescued from the wreckage, where she had been trapped for 28 hours. Ms Guzman, a clerk at the New York Port Authority, said: "I pray for everyone here on this earth. I pray for the Taliban and everyone else that they can wake up and realise what's really going on. I don't feel anger for them."

2002 Sharon Osbourne

The star of fly-on-the-wall show The Osbournes used her Alternative Queen's Speech to compliment the Prince of Wales' future consort on her cleavage. Recounting how she met Camilla Parker Bowles when Ozzy played at the Queen's birthday gala, Osbourne said: "She was very warm and amazingly down to earth and I just told her that she had great tits, 'cos she does."

2003 Barry and Michelle Seabourn

The Seabourns gained notoriety after their turn on the Channel 4 reality show Wife Swap, which saw Michelle decide to leave her husband Barry after his laziness amazed the nation.

During the speech, the pair played on their roles. Michelle said: "I absolutely love Christmas, I love putting the tree up, doing the turkey, all of that. And more so that there's no gambling [Barry is a professional gambler] on Christmas Day and I've got the husband for the full day. I get some great joy out of it."

Barry, true to his previous form, duly responded: "Michelle is hoping this year that I'm going to buy her a present but I can't buy her one because I can't afford it. I'll be honest, I'm a celebrity but I'm a skint celebrity."

His weary wife replied: "Even if he just went to the shops and bought me a chocolate bar or a penny chew I'd like it because it's come from him and he's bought it. He's never bought me a Christmas present though, not once in all the years I've been with him, and I've been with him for 17 years."

2004 Marge Simpson

The first animated character to give the alternative message, Marge Simpson of the Fox comedy cartoon showed she had a thorough knowledge of British culture.

She first talked about her relationship with her husband, Homer, saying: ''My husband and I have never been happier. Our marriage is as solid as the union between your David Beckham and Posh Spice.''

The yellow cartoon mater familias then gasped as she was told through an earpiece about Beckham's alleged affair with Rebecca Loos. "Oh, he did? With his assistant? That's so sad ... OK, moving on ..."