In Britain too, this is as becoming as seasonal as plum pudding, the Queen’s Speech, and repeats of Morecambe and Wise on the telly:

“Conservative-controlled Waveney council in Lowestoft…provides grants totalling £10,000 for festive lights. Its report states that because Christmas focuses only on the Christian faith, continuing the funding would “not fit well with the council’s core values of equality and diversity”. Officials are proposing to cut the lights grants to £5,000 next year and to stop them altogether by 2007.”

Sigh.

Connoisseurs of these matters will note that the council is controlled by Britain’s reliably useless Tories, a party that is (if polls on the upcoming leadership election are to be believed) about to hand itself over to one David (“Dave”) Cameron, a Blair lite with, I think, a background in public relations.