BBC Bargain hunt star rages at 'woke Christmas cancel culture'
EXCLUSIVE: Antiques guru David Harper urges people to spend at venues unashamedly celebrating Christmas.
Bargain Hunt icon David Harper has declared war on woke, raging against surreptitious attempts to cancel Christmas. The antiques guru urged squeezed families to boycott anywhere, substituting the word with phrases like “festive season” or “winter festival” and spend their money at venues that unashamedly celebrate Yuletide.
He fumed after The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham, airbrushed the word from a three-day “seasonal wonderland” market due to start just days before Christmas.
Middlesbrough-born David, 58, said: “The only thing these companies love more than virtue signalling is money. So it’s a good idea to avoid spending our hard-earned and much lusted after cash with any organisation that intentionally removes the word Christmas from their events, or marketing.”
The famous museum's spectacular, starting on December 12, has omitted the word in a bid to be more inclusive.
Instead, its grounds will be transformed into a seasonal wonderland with a “lively programme of artist-led workshops, carolling and festive activities”.
David, who is a born-again Christian and a regular on the BBC, appearing on The One Show, Cash in the Attic, and Antiques Road Trip, has been a Christmas visitor previously, but is this year taking his custom elsewhere.
He told the Daily Express: “Local to me is Raby Castle in Durham, which always puts on an amazing Christmas celebration with events, food and shops, and that’s where I’ll be going, taking visitors and spending my money.”
Meanwhile, Tesco has been on the receiving end of an online backlash, with shoppers threatening to boycott after Christmas was removed from its festive fruit cake.
Punters only clocked the change while hunting for a traditional treat during their online food shop.
Instead, they were met with a selection of holly-iced offerings - none of which mentioned Christmas.
The festive staple comes in a red box featuring pine cones arranged like a Christmas tree, and the cake itself is finished with a holly design. But the supermarket has avoided naming it what shoppers insist it should be called.
One said: “I think we all saw this coming.”
Another shopper added: “Some fruitcake has made a huge mistake.”
It also sparked fury for selling 6.5ft "luxury evergreen" trees for £60 but without reference to Christmas.
Others being sold by Britain's biggest retailer range in price from £5.19 to £159.99 and are still labelled as Christmas trees.
But it is also selling products omitting the word Christmas, including a 60cm pre-lit LED twig tree, and a 3ft pre-lit green tree.
A Tesco spokesman said: “We are proudly celebrating Christmas at Tesco and have a range of real and artificial Christmas trees in store as part of a wide selection of Christmas products to help our customers celebrate Christmas this year.”
Father-of-two James David, 51, from Gloucestershire, said: “I think it’s cowardly to be avoiding the word Christmas. It doesn’t matter what religion or background you have; Britain is a Christian nation, and Christmas is baked into our national life. Using terms such as ‘winter festival’ is both insulting and patronising.
“I think it’s time people voted with their feet and boycotted events that try to rub out Christmas and seek out and support those events that truly celebrate the great British tradition of Christmas.
“We need to make Christmas great again.”
M&S, one of Britain’s oldest and best-loved stores, raised eyebrows by serving up bakery items in unmistakably Christmas-themed red bags, but which fail to mention the word at all, instead containing the message “have a holly good festive season”.
M&S declined to comment.
The Bowes Museum said: “Our ever-popular Winter Market, festive events and activities take place in December and are for everyone to enjoy. The name of the market changed some years ago to better reflect the seasonal programme of events we hold across the year. The Winter Market goes from strength to strength each year, hosting over 100 stallholders annually in the galleries and the grounds, and we look forward to welcoming visitors this year.”
A spokesman for Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, one of the UK’s biggest Christmas fairs, which has already welcomed Cruz Beckham, 20, his girlfriend Jackie Apostel, 30, and sister Harper, 14, said: "Christmas is very much included in our marketing materials, nearer the time. Hyde Park Winter Wonderland is a seasonal event, and we strive to be inclusive for all visitors.”
In 2023, the London School of Economics, which describes itself as a world-leading social science specialist university, sparked bemusement by insisting Christmas holidays should be known as the winter break.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, added: “Christmas is one of the most beautiful and hope-filled seasons of the year, a time when we remember the birth of Jesus Christ.
“When we erase the name of Christmas, we risk losing sight of Christ himself. Let’s keep Christ at the centre because without him we lose the true wonder, joy, and meaning of the season.”
Comment by Susan Hall: Only sopping-wet lefties want to cancel Christmas
The festival we are celebrating with these trees, lights, and other decorations is Christmas. They are Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Christmas decorations - and have been for a very long time in Britain, which has celebrated Christmas for millennia as a Christian country.
We are fortunate enough to live in a society that values religious plurality, and I have been delighted and honoured to be invited to participate in celebrations for a variety of festivals marked by numerous religions, including Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, and others. Be of no uncertain mind that it is not other religions that complain about the word Christmas or celebrating it: it is liberal do-gooders with their bleeding hearts who rush to immolate our culture as a means to try and cleanse themselves of self-imposed guilt.
We should not feel guilty for celebrating our heritage and traditions, just as other faiths do not feel guilty for celebrating theirs.
Indeed, many people from other faiths also come together to celebrate Christmas.
Do these sopping-wet lefties really mean to tell me that families from other faiths - who are listening to Christmas music on the radio, putting up decorations, enjoying the Christmas holiday like the rest of us - really object to this sort of stuff?
At the end of the day, these goods are for Christmas. They are items that form Christmas traditions. They should be labelled as such, because that is what they are.
Shops and businesses should not shy away from feeling able to celebrate the word Christmas, which is enjoyed by millions across this country, regardless of background, and those who feel uncomfortable seeing it should ask themselves whether or not they understand the traditions of our country.
Susan Hall is the leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly
