Jobsworths (again)

Step up to the Plate Brent Council in North London who have decided to ban a 13 year tradition of doing an Easter March by the local Christian Churches.

Mail.

Every year the Christians from different churches get together to march a 400-yard route to celebrate Easter.

But this year their Good Friday parade has been banned – because it breaches health and safety laws.

Church leaders say town hall bureaucrats are refusing Christians rights routinely afforded to minority groups, and have vowed to defy them.

Last night Brent Council told the worshippers to walk on the pavement.

A spokesman added: ‘Brent Council was not contacted about the march until around a week ago. 

‘There is a strict legal procedure we have to follow to issue a traffic order closing roads so people can march in the highway, which includes advertising and consultation, and this takes about five weeks. 

‘We are very sorry to say there is now not enough time for us to legally facilitate this march.’

I'm sorry, but the not enough time to facilitate the march doesn't cut the mustard with me, the churches have been doing it for 13 years and I'm fairly sure that the council knows about the parade and where and when it's likely to take place. Can you imagine the furore if the GLC decided on health and safety grounds to ban the Notting Hill carnival in August because no-one had asked them about it? Not going to happen is it? This is just a piece of posturing by Brent to discriminate against Christians after all if they can hold and promote a massive Diwali festival as well as asking local mosques about Eid so they can promote that festival too...

Brent Council hosts a Diwali street celebration every year. Last November it boasted it had held the biggest Diwali event in the country, after more than 60,000 people turned out. 

And in July last year the council appealed to the Muslim community to notify it of any Eid events so it could promote them free of charge.

If they can recognise those other newer festivals then surely they can recognise Easter and the traditions in Brent that go on around that celebration that oddly enough have gone on for 13 years without until this year interference from the council.
Personally I think this is just a religiously motivated attack against Christians something that I'd bet good money on that Brent would never try against any other religion, I rather expect they'd move heaven and earth if the local Mosques wanted to do a parade at short notice and would allow them to have their way.
I'm still trying to decide whether it's idiocy or malice that defines all these attacks against the indigenous law abiding people of this land, though I'm starting to come down on the side of malice and a deliberate attempt to wind us all up into attacking a scapegoat for all the problems we face, rather than the political classes as they deserve.