We Have Just Had A Perfect Christmas,

but now it is over, but in the UK if the British Transport Police had their way it would not even have begun! British Transport Police have dropped the word ‘Christmas’ from a national publicity poster to avoid upsetting people who do not ‘buy into’ the festival, the word was proposed as part of a slogan on the poster, which is designed to alert people to the extra number of transport police on duty over the festive period, the slogan – devised by an advertising company commissioned by the Transport Police – read ‘Christmas presence’, a pun on the word ‘presents’, (I wonder how much the advertising company was paid even though the poster was changed),

instead of scrapping the poster, however, the department merely swapped ‘Christmas’ for ‘Holiday’, so the slogan now reads ‘Holiday presence’, Nick Baines, the Church of England Bishop of Croydon, said: ‘It is bonkers, to replace “Christmas” with “Holiday” not only makes nonsense of the phrase and the sentiment, it also shows that the advertisers have lost the plot.’ former Tory Minister Ann Widdecombe said: ‘It’s astounding. The person who made this decision must be living on a different planet from everyone else – one where Christmas doesn’t exist.’ the decision to remove the word ‘Christmas’ had been made by the Transport Police’s marketing manager, Alison Lock, who is based at its headquarters in Camden, North London, unfortunately Ms Lock could not be contacted for comment because she was in Canada, the poster is the latest in a series of instances of public bodies removing references to Christmas for fear of upsetting minorities,

in 1997, Birmingham Council was derided by Christians for using ‘Winterval’ as the name of its official Christmas festivities, which involved inter-faith events, and there were protests last month when the Tayside city of Dundee promoted its Christmas celebrations as the Winter Night Light festival, even the Tory Party was involved in controversy this year for producing Christmas cards that do not mention the word Christmas, despite leader David Cameron having branded such politically correct cards as ‘insulting tosh’, to the fury of Tory MPs, the cards avoided religious imagery and carried the message ‘Season’s greetings’. Tory officials were forced to produce a new set of cards using the words ‘Merry Christmas’,

I have said it before and say it again, please leave our Christmases alone!