|PIC1|Tory backbencher Philip Davies has criticised his own party for issuing politically correct Christmas cards this year.

The Conservative Party’s official Christmas cards are devoid of any Christian imagery, preferring pictures of robins and red phone boxes in the snow over traditional scenes of Jesus in a manger or the Three Kings. Instead of wishing people a Merry Christmas, the cards instead display the message ‘Season’s Greetings’.

Philip Davies, MP for Shipley, was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying: “If this decision has been made on a PC basis it would be totally unacceptable and I would be extremely saddened.

“This kind of pandering to extreme elements of the PC brigade is not something I
would envisage from the Conservative Party. I have yet to meet anyone of any religion who is offended by people in this country celebrating Christmas.

“The only people who complain are those who get offended on other people's behalf: the white middle-class Guardian-reading left-wing do-gooders with a misguided guilt complex and too much time on their hands.”

The cards have been printed despite Tory leader David Cameron’s public derision of politically correct Christmas cards two years ago. He said the idea that anyone could be offended by Christmas cards wishing a ‘Merry Christmas’ was “insulting tosh”.

The cards are available from the party’s website. A party spokesman said new stock had been added with the ‘Merry Christmas’ greeting.

The PC Christmas cards will be seen by many Christians as a further erosion of the Christian Christmas in the UK.

Earlier in the month, Dundee City Council left local Christians disappointed when it announced plans for switching on the Christmas lights this year that made no mention to Christmas or Christianity. The spectacle was instead named the “Winter Light Night” and is set to include illuminations, street art performances and an international market.

The Rev Allan Webster, Church of Scotland minister and chaplain to Dundee City Council, said members of all the congregations within the Dundee Presbytery were being encouraged to take up the matter with their councillors.

"Christmas is a Christian festival, and the dropping of the term Christmas lights and the telling of the Christmas story is an erosion of the religious festival,” he said.

"I am not knocking the whole programme. It is important for all faiths to be able to celebrate their festivals and I must stress I would also be concerned if people of any other religion had theirs diluted."