Dundee Sees The Light

Several days ago I posted this and am now delighted to report Dundee has seen the light and is now to include the Christmas message in the Winter Light Night event. Representatives from the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church will join the procession and be allowed to address the crowds gathered for the celebrations.

Mr Letford, the Lord Provost said: "There has been great disappointment with the way {this issue} has been handled. It was a vague policy document that seems to have caught us on the hop. It is very disappointing the city's reputation has been tarnished."

He vowed the situation. "will all be sorted out for next year and we will not allow this to happen again."

Well done Dundee, it would have been quite easy to ignore the public protests and I commend that fact that an error was admitted and is now corrected.

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Dundee's Lord Provost in the Dark about Winter Lights

Lord Provost Letford

A real stooshie has broken out in Dundee and now the Lord Provost has intervened saying he wants to set the record straight.

Lord Provost Letford has been inundated with emails and telephone calls from angry Dundonians. He accepted that an item about the Winter Light Night had gone through committee and he had not opposed it, but said that was because he believed what was being proposed was in addition to the traditional Christmas lights event, rather than a replacement.

"As I am being attacked over this I feel I must point out that it was not my doing and I am not in favour of it."

I accept perhaps Lord Provost Letford didn't understand the item put forward at the committee, but surely if he's not in favour of it then he can do something about it. The committee sat only last Friday.

Today's excuse from a council spokesman is, "As has been seen with the injuries at the Christmas lights switch-on in Birmingham, large groups of people congregating in one area can present safety issues for the public."

Birmingham had 30,000 at their event when they only expected half of that. Birmingham has a population close to a million people, Dundee has 170,000 at most. Over the years I've been to many events in Dundee City Square and there has never been a crowd problem. I'm sure the council spokesman will be receiving some emails and phone calls of his own today.

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Dundee Cancels Christmas

'I never thought I'd live to see the day', how often do we say that? Early on Thursday morning, because I was completely weary watching the Jim Murphy Show on the BBC, I decided to browse the papers for some light-hearted relief.

Imagine my surprise when, in the Scotland section of the Times, a header 'We wish you a merry Christmas (but not in Dundee)'. Yes, I did have to read it twice.

Dundee, the place of my birth, the once thriving centre of industries such as ship building, jute making, Smedleys, Timex, NCR, has finally been consumed by the Righteous brigade and in the first year of an SNP council to boot. I've heard of labour councils playing this silly game but it never crossed my mind an SNP council would be so accommodating to the Righteous.

All references to Christmas have been dropped from the switching-on ceremony, on 27 November, for the city's festive lights and the occasion will be now known as "Dundee Winter Light Night." Council officials have also decided that rather than a retelling of the Nativity story there will be a disco, a contemporary circus, a continental market and a 7 foot fairy on stilts.

Members of the Presbytery of Dundee are up in arms. Too right and good for them. I would have thought most of the population would disagree with this move.

The council really should do their homework rather better before including Winter in their title. Winter is usually defined here as starting on the winter solstice which is 21 December therefore, to be truly politically correct the title should be Dundee Autumnal Light Night.

Come on Dundee council, stop the nonsense and give Dundee's Christmas lights their proper label. There's nothing politically correct about this change. The message I get from it is you're still a bunch of numpties, even though you've changed colour.

I never thought I'd live to see the day Dundee purposely ignored the celebration of Christmas.

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