Here is part one of our sneak preview of some of the ‘seasonal specials’ being planned by some of our favourite columnists.
Melanie Phillips: Farewell to Christmas. Soon Yuletide will be a distant memory as the BBC bans Santa from our screens and forces us to watch documentaries about Allah’s childhood in segregated rooms subsidised by the EU. Shame on you Tony Blair.
Michael Meacher – Was there really no room at the Inn? New evidence on the internet suggests there might have been plenty of space at the Inn after all. So why were Mary and Joseph forced into a stable? And why is our neo-con dominated government strangely silent?
Naomi Klein: Father Christmas exists. A taxi driver in Baghdad’s eye-witness account of seeing Santa near the Green Zone is being suppressed by the White House. Some other Baghdad taxi drivers believe the man dressed in the red outfit could have been a CIA or Mossad agent.
George Galloway – I was not Santa’s Little Helper. Like Jesus himself, I am constantly having my motives questioned. I can categorically deny that I was in Lapland on Christmas Day – just ask Tariq Aziz. And I’ve no idea where all those bags of toys came from. I’ve never seen a sack of toys. Quality Street anyone?
Martin Jacques – Christmas isn’t like it used to be. I remember when I was a lad we were happy with a tangerine and a Beano annual but it’s all computer games and DVDs these days. Capitalism has ruined Christmas and Europe can’t escape the consequences. The Chinese New Year is the New Christmas.
George Monbiot – Its time to challenge Corporate Christmas. Who needs high-rise hotels and cruise boat holidays when the humble stable offers all that we need? Straw is more comfortable than you think and frankly I’d settle for incense as a gift again this year.
Stephen Pollard – Blunkett’s Christmas Hell. In my new book I reveal David Blunkett’s intense anguish over whether or not to send a Christmas card to his lover. Also in my new book, available at all good book shops, Blunkett revealed to me how he snubbed an invite to John Prescott’s Christmas party because he feared it would be “boring”. That’s in my new book by the way…the one by me.
Update: If you don’t usually read the comments boxes here, I suggest you make an exception with this post.
After all Christopher Hitchens, Johann Hari, Medialens, Andrea Dworkin, John Pilger, Madelaine Bunting, Benjamin Mackie, Peter Hitchens, Peter Mandelson, Boris Johnson and Julie Burchill all make appearances – with hilarious results.
