Father Christmas has been threated with the removal of his monopoly in the UK market following the publication of this year's Naughty or Nice list, which again shows that the list a child gets on is strongly linked to parental income.
"We simply cannot go on with a situation in which the Naughty or Nice List completely fails to represent society as a whole," claimed junior minister Alan Crockdale, "and it's up to Santa to do more encourage children from working class backgrounds to try and get on the Nice List."
Challenged that the Naughty or Nice List is simply a refection of behavioural standards within society, Crockdale went on to blame Father Christmas for not doing enough to make sure "standards required take into account the background the children are from."
"Perhaps rather than demanding that every child 'remembers their pleases and thank you's' at the end of their sentences, he could look into the possibility of some children making it onto the Nice List by omitting to say 'or I'll fuckin' shank you' when they finish speaking," he suggested.
But a spokesman for Father Christmas reacted angrily, saying the organisation wasn't responsible for social engineering and claiming that standards for achieving a place on the Nice List have in any case gone down significantly in recent years:
"Where once a child had to do at least a couple of good deeds a year, like make their Gran a cup of tea, in order to make it onto the Nice List, nowadays it's enough if they refrain from beating up smaller kids and swearing at their teacher."
Ministers are meeting on Friday to discuss the possibility of removing Santa's monopoly, which would open up the present delivery market to foreign competition including Befana, the Italian witch, or the German "Christkind", who has been following developments in the UK market for a long time with a hope to extending operations here.
The possible threat of the Christkind taking over some of the UK market has, however, led to a preemptive backlash by the Daily Mail, who have started a "Save the British Christmas!" campaign.
"This is yet another example of the EU trying to destroy British traditions," calimed Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre. "The next thing we know we'll all be forced to eat Sauerkraut for Christmas dinner and the Queen's Speech will be given by Angela Merkel. I mean, come on, Father Christmas! You can't get more British than that!" He said referring to the red-suited, white-bearded charcter created by an Atlanta-based company in the 1930s to promote Coca-Cola to the American public.
