Binge Thinking

Let's lobby for a new Bank Holiday - Ros Palmer

Driving to work this morning, I heard Chris Moyles and crew celebrating the fact that this is a bank holiday weekend.  They then put an immediate dampener on it.  No, not due to a terrible weather forecast – evidently it may be OK – no, due to the fact that next Monday will signal the last UK bank holiday of the year.  Well, until Christmas anyway.  

I have to say, I have always been confused as to why we are part of an Economic Union that tries to standardise lots of practices across countries and yet we, in the UK, have fewer bank holidays than just about anyone. 

Well, a quick check on Wikipedia shows this is not entirely accurate the UK actually looks quite rich in holidays upon first glance.  But on closer inspection, many of the days are for England, Scotland or the Republic of Ireland or other regions only.  In England we have nine days including Christmas Day and Boxing Day. 

My friend Elizabeth, who lives in Madrid, seems to have a national holiday every other week.  Checking the Spanish holiday chart I see that nationally they have nine days but there are a potential further nine days to be had regionally.  It seems that in practice, many regions will adopt each other’s days off.  The days also tend to fall on a Thursday so it is also accepted practice to just add in the Friday to make a four day weekend. 

Nice for some. 

With this in mind my attention was drawn to a BBC News story about the TUC calling for an extra UK bank holiday to celebrate the work of volunteers and to boost the economy.  The article says the TUC: “Wants the "community day" to come in late October and to encourage people to get involved with communal activities.

“The economy would benefit from the extra spending that would result from people having a day out, it said.

“But the government said it had no plans to change the current pattern of bank holidays, claiming there were other ways of promoting work-life balance.

"The government regularly receives a variety of suggestions for new or different bank holidays," said a Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) spokesman.

"However, it is not possible to please everyone as to whom or what should be celebrated."

I wondered what they meant by pleasing everyone so back I went to Wikipedia.  It seems that recent suggestions for additional bank holidays are as follows:

One to represent the United Kingdom, British Day (possibly part of Gordon Brown's "Britishness" policy).

Trafalgar Day
Community Day to celebrate volunteering and communities.

Waterloo Day
One to represent the European Union, making Europe Day a bank holiday.
One to represent the monarchy such as the Queen's Birthday (as in Australia, New Zealand and Canada) or coronation.

The adoption of either Veterans' Day UK, which falls during summer,[1] or a date in November, either on or close to the traditional Armistice Day, which would also give a holiday between the August Bank Holiday and Christmas.[2] 

Well, some interesting suggestions but I think that an additional day between August and Christmas would be an excellent idea and my vote is for a variation on the volunteers day as there is a Make A Difference Day on Thursday 25 October 2008.

Organised by CSV.uk it is billed as: “The UK's biggest annual day of volunteering!” and offers you, “a chance to make a difference in your community by organising a project with friends, family, your workplace or place of worship”.  Check it out at: http://www.csv.org.uk/campaigns/make+a+difference+day/

I do have another suggestion though.  We could start lobbying for a ‘National Thinking’ day.  Imagine it, a day when people actually take time to think (obviously in a solution focused way) and actually plan and prioritise their work and life. 

Now, which MP might be up for championing that I wonder?

RP