Can you see the word “Easter” in the image above? The image is a screenshot of the National Trust website for its Easter activity.
Yet, Theresa May saw fit to interrupt her visit to Saudi Arabia to criticise Cadbury’s and the National Trust for calling the activity an “Egg Hunt” rather than a “Easter Egg Hunt” – even though Easter is emblazoned above the title.
How ridiculous is that?
Now I see that I am being asked to boycott Cadbury’s Creme Eggs as a result of this nonsense.
I don’t eat Cadbury’s Easter eggs anyway so I can’t boycott them. But there is no compunction on chocolate manufacturers to make sure their labelling is theologically sound. The Church, particularly the Church of England (of which I am a member) already has vast resources (just take a shuftie at the real estate in Dean’s Yard, London SW1 for starters) and privileges (e.g guaranteed seats for bishops in the UK legislature) at its disposal to get the good message across. We don’t have to rely on Cadbury’s to supplement the message – indeed such confectionery business has something of the “money changers in the temple” about it these days. Cadburys is owned by a firm headquartered in Illinois, USA. Its founding Quaker roots have long gone. That horse has bolted. But the fact that Easter is prominently associated with the whole campaign (the word “Easter” is apparently mentioned 13,000 times on the National Trust website) should surely be more than enough. It hardly justifies an interruption to international diplomacy.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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15 Comments
Perhaps she is concerned that Joe public will get confused and start hunting for birds eggs on National Trust land and we are all too stupid to know they are talking about chocolate eggs?
Obviously the mosat important thing for Mrs May to witter on about while in the Middle East. Anything to distract from the fact that she was out there selling arms to the ISIS-sponsoring women-beheading, Yemeni-slaughtering Saudis.
As a Christian, I might well harrumph at the process by which a religious festival has gradually corroded into a bank holiday of chocolate and self-indulgence (but, of course, I recognise that this has not taken place due to some sinister conspiracy).
There is utterly no way in which I would want to see those concerns taken into the political sphere and myself and my co-religionists recruited as conscripts in a Tory-led Daily-Mail-supported kulturkampf designed to press the buttons of middle class, middle-aged nostalgists.
@ Matt ( Bristol),
Looking at what Jeremy Corbin actually said, I think it can be seen as an harrumph against the commercialisation of a religious festival. As a (lapsed Catholic/ agnostic) I agree with him.
When I as growing up in a Christian household, a few daffodils and stems of pussy willow in a vase was considered all that was needed to celebrate the occasion. No financial outlay at all – apart from our Easter eggs which all tasted good whether they were in the fancy packaging that now bumps up the price for parents and does nothing for the environment or in our case, not.
As far as Mrs May is concerned, this is the woman who as Home secretary spread the Daily Mail nonsense that someone could not be deported simply because he had a cat , and did not know the day of the week when it came to deporting someone who judges had decided should be deported.
@Matt
I think some of the confusion comes from having two festivals, one pagan & one Christian, both at the same time, both using the same “natural metaphor” of spring, both with a message of hope & both with the same name.
Eggs & bunnies are part of the pagan bit, as is the word “Easter”.
Chocolate we stole from The Aztecs.
Given that the Progressive Left has championed the intellectually vacuous concept of “cultural appropriation”, it’s only fair that we should have it thrown back in our faces…
I’ve no truck with intellectually vacuous posturing wherever it comes from. It is ironic that the right now seems to be adopting pointless gesture politics, something traditionally associated with the “trendy” left. Either way, liberals need have nothing to do with it.
Could someone in London please embarass Mrs. May by pointing out that she is descending to the populist level of Dutch demagogue Geert Wilders, who last Christmas kept protesting and whining about exactly the same point around the TV and radio spots on Dutch public broadcasting about their Christmas programming (it was advertized as “December holidays”) .
By continuing to sell arms to the Saudi’s, May is doing such a great job (ahem) of promoting human rights she calls “universal” and even “Europan and thus Liberal Democratic” (riotous laughing in the House of Commons). Perhaps she should pledge to donate all the British profits of selling bombs to Ryadh to the Famine Relief in Yemen, South Sudan etcetera…
May’s comments were ridiculous, but we must remember that she only gave her opinion because a journalist thought it was appropriate to ask her about it. Please do not see this as an excuse for May, but rather frustration at the patchy performance of our media when it comes to holding our elected representatives to account.
Journalists should be asking tougher questions, and should be able to do so without fear of being denied access in the future. Although in this case, the journalist in question has been heartily rewarded by a story that has been reported far and wide, and discussed at length. Perhaps we are all complicit in this failure?
For those interested in the intellectual vacuous concept of ‘cultural Appropriation’, may I recommend an American article, ‘What does ‘cultural appropriateness’ actually mean?
I found the discussion interesting, but then again, according to Liberal Democrats, I am intellectually vacuous.
How can I live with that knowledge?
@Jayne Mansfield Do you mean This article in The Atlantic, dated Apr 3, 2017? If so, it is indeed an interesting article and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. I am fairly sure that Cllr Mark didn’t call you intellectually vacuous, however, and even had he, extending that the “Liberal Democrats” is unfair.
Haven’t Christians basically nicked the general paraphernalia around their belief in Easter and Christmas off everyone else?
@ Daniel Walker,
I am pleased that you too found the article interesting.
I am afraid that when people make sweeping statements about the ‘ Progressive left’, they do indeed include me. Or at least , I certainly hope so.
On a trip back to England to catch up with my family, I am just dipping into various sites to check what has happened whilst I have been away. Nothing much has changed it seems, the ‘Progressive left’ are still focussing their criticism on the ‘Progressive left’. In the meantime the political Right are still making hay while the sun shines.
1: Who counted the 13,000 mentions? Or was this an enhancement to a FIND function for documents?
2: Evidently Maggie May has never stooped to designing a political leaflet with pictures and limited space for large font text.
>1: Who counted the 13,000 mentions?
Suspect some double counting: google using: “site:nationaltrust.org.uk easter” (ie. search within the named site) returns “about 6,050 results”.