Lambeth Lights Controversy: Update

By Rob Last edited 220 months ago
Lambeth Lights Controversy: Update
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Just a quick follow up to the Lambeth 'Christmas' lights story everyone was talking about last week.

If you remember, the council had begun to refer to the the festive displays as ''Winter Lights' or 'Celebrity lights' in adverts for the switch-on event, the assumption being that they were somehow attempting to extract all the religion out of the event.

Conservative councillor Bernard Gentry then went and opened his gob to the Beeb, announcing that "Christmas appears to have been cancelled in our borough".

Cue uproar from the Conservative press (the Express and the Standard both ran front page stories).

At the end of last week however, Lambeth Council issued this rather abrupt press release which completely denied the story:

The suggestion Christmas has been banned is absolutely ridiculous, the usual Christmas tree will be up in the town hall, the usual Christmas carols will be sung and we're looking forward to the Christmas lights being switched on.

(That's about 1 'Christmas' every 10 word in case you were wondering.)

A council spokesman has also been quoted as saying "It was a junior-level decision and it happened to go into print which was an error basically. I think it was certainly not a council policy that we should call the lights winter lights."

The junior council member referred to (though to be a Mr G. Rinch) was unavailable for comment.

Last Updated 07 November 2005