If Labour is going to compete with Reform on Christianity it should at least have a basic grip of the ideas, otherwise they just look like needy, clueless opportunists blurting out nonsense like “happy Palm Sunday”.

Palm Sunday is more properly called Passion Sunday because it marks the day Christians believe Jesus arrived in Jerusalem where he would be crucified on the Friday.

The Romans didn’t just crucify him. He was whipped with a metal tipped scourge which would have ripped the skin off his back and was finally put out of his misery when a Roman soldier finished him off with a lance.

For obscure reasons, probably linked to debates in the 12^th century Byzantine church, Reform’s Robert Jenrick opts to call it Psalm Sunday.  Either that or he’s a bandwagon jumping, culture war opportunist. In the words of the late Pope Francis “who am I to judge?”

Now, it is beyond dispute that this Labour government is hideously illiberal. Virtually anyone with a free senior bus pass is likely to get arrested on suspicion of supporting Palestine Action and they are keen to abolish trial by jury for most people. But they really have crossed a line with their “happy Palm Sunday” message. Who is going to be happy about a day when someone, who is generally considered to have been quite a nice man, sets off towards an agonising death?

Only today’s Labour Party seems to be the answer. They did reveal something of this side of their character during the Corbyn years when much of the parliamentary party were in favour of scourging and crucifying the man literally and metaphorically. Corbyn was infuriatingly Christ like in his persistent determination to turn the other cheek, so he was sort of asking for it.

Of course there is another explanation. It might also be true that some clueless functionary, albeit one who got the job because they are in favour of whipping and crucifying people who talk about peace, love and the poor, clocked that Palm Sunday is a moderately significant event in the Christian calendar and decided Labour had to remark on it. But if you are going to wade into these things it is always best to do thirty seconds of research. At least Reform managed to demonstrate that they knew it’s not a big party day and has something to do with the cross.

All the main parties put out messages for most of the major religious festivals, and it is probably a harmless enough thing to do. However in the last year or so Reform and the Tories have become militantly Islamophobic and Reform in particular is weaponizing a version of Christianity which includes inventing the non-issue of disused churches being converted into mosques.

Labour are never going to beat Reform at the religious culture war game. Their “happy Palm Sunday” message produced by an inept hack and shared by hapless MPs is comic confirmation of that.

Of course, we should keep open the possibility that they just really hate Jesus and we can look forward to their “Happy Good Friday” message.