Sharpe's Opinion
Tuesday, 9th Dec, 2008
Boris Takes A Stand Against Liberal Racism
Iain Dale has the story:
Boris has made yet another stride forward in his quest to drive political correctness from City Hall for good. He has decided that Christmas must remain Christmas and that all mentions of Winter Festivals or the like are to be banished. Today City Hall sent out a press release telling a grateful capital city of its Mayor’s Christmas Carol Service at Southwark Cathedral.
I brand anybody who objects to this as racist. Not because they’re oppressing Christianity – I couldn’t care less about Christianity. The problem is that they have the audacity to imagine that I, or any person of a minority faith, would regard the name of somebody else’s festival as offensive.
Comments
Gosh, you’re not suggesting the celebration of the winter solstice has something to do with religion, are you?
How quaint…
That’ll have to be the subject of a full post at some point. Too much for a comment thread 
Incidentally, I don’t believe there are any offence-takers. The point I was making was that the councillors, civil servants, diversity secretaries and other assorted do-gooders are the real problem – they are genuinely racist enough enough to believe that anybody who isn’t White and ‘Christian’ isgoing to be small-minded and upset to see others celebrating Christmas. It’s sad.
Boris dares others to think. I don’t agree he should be considered for PM (yet) but he does seem to connect, in his own way.
On this issue, I would side with the Christians but only because others are seemingly opposing for the sake of it. A couple of years ago, Fox News took on Walmart and the other big boys for preferring ‘Winter’ festivals – and broke them. Seems the commercial sector took a beating over there.
By offence-takers I mean white “liberals” (though I do not see what’s liberal about them). But I’ve met something like 5 people who genuinely fell into this type, amongst hundreds of liberals & leftists.
Of course I don’t believe in any religion, but I think the cultural & literary heritage should be celebrated. I am very conservative (small c) on this matters, perhaps a lot more so than many Tories.
For the same reason, I love real ale pubs, farmers’ markets, & home cooking (unlike some people I don’t enjoy actually doing the cooking itself, but the food is better).
But like I said, I wonder whether many Tories really are conservative (though I think you are).
I don’t have an ideology. They stand in the way of rational thought.
I genuinely couldn’t estimate how many of these ‘offence-takers’ there are. Perhaps there are none outside of council offices. The problem isn’t that there are lots of them; the problem is that the ones who do exist are interfering Whitehousian busy-bodies who seem to gravitate to positions where they actually have some degree of power over the rest of us.
If there really are no such people, where do the legions of rules on these things come from?
I am a liberal, & an atheist, & I will be celebrating Christmas. I am more familiar with the English Bible than people like Clarkson & Littlecock are likely to be, & think it should be cherished as literature as the Koran is in Muslim countries. I also have a love of the Book of Common Prayer. Both of them are vital to our literature & culture.
I often think they should be taught in schools. I wouldn’t put them on the curriculum but I’d leave schools free to teach them & think it would be worthwhile!
Offence-takers are fuckwits, but I don’t think there are many of them. It is a bit of a right-wing urban myth. I enjoy hymns & carols. I seem to recall Christ being offended by rampant commercialism usurping religion, though…
asquith
December 9, 2008 at 8:31 pm