December gets off to a bang this morning as the EU Commission has been forced to back down from plans to ban the word Christmas to avoid offence. The move had been spotted in an internal document, advising officials to use inclusive language like “holiday season”. The credit must go to Italian red top il Giornale, which accused the Commission of an attempt to “cancel Christmas”.

The memo also called on officials to avoid terms such as “man-made”, “chairman” and “ladies and gentlemen”, as well as suggesting officials ask people their pronouns.

The miserly move was launched by the commissioner for equality, Helena Dalli, who has since said she will withdraw the guidelines as it is not “a mature document and does not meet all commission quality standards”. While the politically correct Commission tries fiddling with language wording, Guido points out the executive still has no non-white Commissioners, surely a more substantive issue. It seems Brussels will have a very white Christmas this year…