Christmas (Credit Crunch) Message

One of the things I hate about Christmas is the way that so much airtime is given over to the religious nutters. Look, Christmas was nicked from the poor Pagans - it's a celebration of the winter solstice. No one knows when (or frankly even if) Jesus was born - the odds of him being born on 25th December on our calendar are about 365-1 against.

I love the idea of being around family and giving of gifts (because I love to give) but the supernatural message is lost on me. The churches cling on to it because they don't have a lot to offer frankly in these days of manic consumerism.

But they've been handed a gift this year.

Most of the west is suffering a massive downturn and they're milking it for everything they can get. Lots of hand-wringing about how we should be good to each other and how Jesus said this and that... the usual stuff. Credit is hard to come by and the effect of the greed that governments allowed to run unchecked for decades has finally burst a bubble and we're in a recession - a bad one.

So you will forgive me for observing that not all so-called Christians are so thrifty. Sir Peter Vardy, a favourite of god-bothering former British PM, Tony Blair built a multi-million pound car business thanks to cheap credit: and became enormously rich into the bargain.

He got out when the going got good and once commented that the lord (God) had given him a "very full cup" which made me want to vomit.

God, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Vardy is a businessman and with some good judgement and shrewd decisions, he rode a tide of easy credit and explosion in personal debt to dizzying financial heights. I have my doubts he would fair so well selling cars in the current financial climate where even the car-makers are having to be bailed out by governments.

But Vardy doesn't do motor cars now - he jumped ship, becoming even more personally wealthy than before and ploughed some of his gains into another sure thing: City Academies - and it's his belief in promoting the supernatural that brought him onto my radar. (The guy is a snake-oil salesman and we're letting him decide the future of some of our children!)

At the same time the very practices that made Vardy so eye-wateringly rich are being decried as wicked from virtually every pulpit in the land: by senior members of his own sect.

BBC reports Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester as saying:

"Society is facing an inevitable come-uppance for its 'buy now, pay later' culture."

I wonder how Sir Peter can sleep at night knowing that his millions come from precisely that? Rather well, I expect.