'Bonkers' police drop the word Christmas from poster to avoid upsetting other faiths

Published 27th Dec 2009

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’.

But in a move branded ‘bonkers’ by Christian leaders, the police’s marketing department decided the word Christmas could anger non-believers or people from other faiths who disliked its Christian connotations.

Instead of scrapping the poster, however, the department merely swapped ‘Christmas’ for ‘Holiday’, so the slogan now reads ‘Holiday presence’.

Critics said last night that the slogan was meaningless and accused the Transport Police of bowing to political correctness.

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.’

Hundreds of the posters have been put up over the past couple of weeks in railway stations up and down the country and on the London Underground at a cost of thousands of pounds.

A Transport Police spokesman said the poster had the dual purpose of making people aware of the extra officers on duty and warning that anyone who assaulted transport staff would be treated severely.

The spokesman said that there was normally a rise in such assaults over the Christmas and New Year period.

He added that 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.

‘It is just to make the message non-denominational so that it applies to everyone and so that people who don’t buy into Christmas don’t feel excluded,’ the spokesman said.

‘I can see there can be a debate around it but it is a matter of opinion and I’m not going to comment.’

He said Ms Lock could not be contacted for comment because she was in Canada, and added: ‘As far as we are concerned, the more publicity we get for the campaign, the better.’

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’.

Source: ' Mail on Sunday '

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