HARK the herald angels sing, Barclays does the latest thing. And what is the latest thing? It is to refuse to mention Christmas and instead to refer to Christmas Day as a Bank Holiday.

There is a lot of this sort of obtuseness around: everywhere you look people are reluctant to mention any religious thing that might offend those who do not share the beliefs of that particular religion. What a farce this is and so destructive of harmony in society.

Why refuse to mention Christmas?

Christians don’t object when Muslims mention Ramadan and Eid. I’ve never seen a Hindu placard protesting against the Jewish commemoration of the Passover. So why get too squeamish to mention Christmas? Bing Crosby wasn’t squeamish and he sang I’m dreaming of a white Christmas cheerfully enough. It sure beats what his compatriots call it now – holiday. I’m dreaming of a white holiday doesn’t have quite the same seasonal ring to it.

Look, different people practising different religions openly in one and same country is a sign of a civilised society – providing they keep the peace and refrain from saying offensive things about other faiths. Much of the current squeamishness is not the fault of religious people, but of the secular prejudice which is trying its damnedest to remove all mention of any religion from public life. It’s not that by wearing a cross I’ll offend Jews or Buddhists, but that my wearing the cross seems to upset atheists and humanists no end. I don’t see why it should. I’m not asking them to wear the cross, or sing carols or go to church. What I do find offensive is how readily these secularists are to take offence.

When I was an RE teacher in a state school in Bolton back in the last century, I led a Christian assembly every morning – as prescribed by the Butler Education Act of 1944. We had a few Muslims in our school and more than a hundred Hindus – East African Asians who had been chucked out by the brute Idi Amin. None of these children booed or whistled during my assemblies. Not one of them absented herself from these gatherings which were certainly manifestations of the Christian religion and which were also a unifying part of school life. It was where you said the Lord’s Prayer – but it was also where the school football team’s results were announced and where the head-teacher came on stage to tell pupils to stay away from dangerous mill ponds and canals in the holidays.

When the big brothers or big sisters of kids in my class got married I, as school chaplain was invited. At Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, I was made royally welcome – with their Christian classmates – to join in the singing and dancing and to eat as much of the delicious Indian food as I could get down. The way to promote social harmony in a country where the population is of many religious faiths is not to hush religion up as if it were something shifty or disgraceful, but to acknowledge the existence of these faiths openly. And this I think is the most important and socially constructive truth: if you really want to understand the other bloke’s religion, it helps if you are a sincere practitioner of your own faith. Religion is a huge part of life in Britain. To treat it as something unmentionable is to ask for trouble.

What if you’re an atheist or a humanist? Then, like everyone else, try to live and let live. please.