Some children have expressed their disappointment that the festive season will be minus one pivotal figure, but a Home Office spokeswoman said: ‘We can’t have quasi-mystical figures, coming over here, with their elf sweat shops. Jobs which could easily be filled by a British Druid or Boggart.
‘Santa has long been associated with breaking and entering, reindeer prostitution - or Ho Ho Ho’s as he calls them. And arbitrarily deciding who is naughty or nice is just the sort of thing a European bureaucrat would support.’