As sure as eggs is eggs, the right gets angry over Easter

As sure as chocolate eggs is eggs, one thing you can count on every Easter is the right wing tying itself in knots over the supposed cancellation of Christianity from the Christian festival.

So there was performative fury over on Talk – the former TalkTV, which isn’t on TV anymore – when resident foghorn James Whale discovered the box of his Easter Cadbury’s Creme Egg didn’t include the word ‘Easter’. Even though it, er, did.

“They’ve left the word Easter out!” fumed Whale, pointing at the front of his box. “Can you see that! Why? It says Cadbury’s Creme Egg. It doesn’t say anything about Easter. So I may have to stop buying Cadbury’s… it’s not an Eid egg, you know. It’s an Easter egg.”

It was left to co-presenter Ash Gould to point out that the box did say, in large letters across the top of the box, “HAPPY EASTER”.

Others on the right – in no way attempting to copy Donald Trump’s embrace of religion without being particularly religious himself – wanted to share the good news that church attendance is rising. Liz Truss posted on X: “There is hope” while sharing a graph showing that attendance at the UK’s Christian churches has increased among 18- to 24-year-olds. Yet in August 2022, during her Tory leadership campaign, she told a hustings: “I share the values of the Christian faith and the Church of England, but I’m not a regular practising religious person.”

And Whale’s Talk colleague Alex Phillips gushed on X: “My church is so full this Easter Sunday. Every inch, every outbuilding, the cafe, the overflow rooms – and still more come. We are squeezing up to try to accommodate every last worshipper. Something powerful is happening as the world turns back to The Lord. Hallelujah!”

Just four years ago, Phillips posted: “When headlines say stuff like ‘Lockdown restrictions to begin to ease from Easter’ does anyone else have absolutely no idea when Easter is? I mean it’s somewhere between March and May right? I didn’t realise I was supposed to have an annual record of the moving Christian feasts.”

Still, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, eh?