Comedian Stewart Lee defends Birmingham City Council use of the term ' Winterval'

Left: Stewart Lee.

Politically correct maggot and third rate comic.

Winterval was first suggested by Birmingham City Council in 1997.

Birmingham City Council have the honour of being the laughing stock of the U.K with their idiotic politically correct brainchild 'Winterval'.

The name "Winterval" was a portmanteau of "winter" and festival coined by the Council's Head of Events, Mike Chubb. In October 2008 he explained:

Left:Michael Chubb.

Quite simply, as Head of events at that time, we needed a vehicle which could cover the marketing of a whole season of events…Diwali (festival of Lights), Christmas lights switch on, BBC Children in Need, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Chinese New year, New Years eve etc. Also a season that included theatre shows and open air ice rink, Frankfurt open air Christmas market and the Christmas seasonal retail offer. Christmas, called Christmas! and its celebration, lay at the heart of Winterval.

Absolute rubbish of course, MR Chubb is guilty of selling indigenous Brummies down the river, the Winterval saga is no dobt something that Birmingham City Council would like to forget.

The Birmingham Post reports - Comedian Stewart Lee has been on the radio pushing the familiar line that Birmingham City Council was accused of "banning" Christmas.

As he correctly says in his interview, which you can hear for yourself here, "they called the celebrations as a whole Winterval and you were allowed to use the word Christmas, and you were allowed to have a Christmas tree" and to celebrate other religious festivals such as Diwali too.

I thought it might be useful to remind people what was actually reported, in our sister paper The Sunday Mercury by the excellent Bob Haywood, at the time (November 8 1998):

A LEADING churchman has launched an astonishing attack on council chiefs over Christmas.
The Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Rev Mark Santer, has accused Birmingham City Council of replacing Christmas with `Winterval'.

He calls the decision madness - and says there is a danger of the secular world becoming deeply embarrased by faith. Read more

A real comedian!