It seems that for some, our bank holidays are a step too far.
Each bank holiday costs the UK economy £2.3bn and scrapping them would boost annual output by £19bn, economists say.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) think tank wants them to be more spread out over the year to stop businesses “losing momentum”.
Oh, fer fuck’s sake already! The CEBR can shove its collective head even further up its collective arse, frankly. Our bank holidays are based on something much more deep rooted than the economy – they date back to pre-Christian times when festivals followed the changing of the seasons; the equinox, midwinter, spring and the harvest home. A time to get together and have a bit of time off, some time to see folk we don’t otherwise see during the year, a time to recharge with friends and family, to relax and let our hair down, making us more able to cope with the daily grind. They have been around for long enough that the economy can be planned around them. Perhaps the CEBR would like us to work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week – and why not send children up chimneys while we are at it?
It is also worth pointing out that other countries manage to get in even more bank holidays and are more productive, so taking time off collectively isn’t the problem – if, indeed, there is actually a problem as opposed to the academic wittering of people divorced from the real world.
There is more to life than business momentum and there is more to life than the economy and it having been royally fucked by successive politicians and economists, a few days off when we can forget about it is no bad thing.
The think thank says that if bank holidays were scrapped, Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP) – a measure of the value of goods and services produced by all sectors of the economy – would be £19bn higher every year.
It isn’t our holidays that need scrapping, frankly…
Anyone who thinks that scrapping bank holidays is a good idea obviously hasn’t got a real job. What do these guys produce, apart from hot air that is?
Nothing. They are a drain on the economy 😉
Stoneyground beat me to it. Hands up all those who think the tossers at the CEBR were at their desks on Friday and this morning.
Of course they weren’t. It’s only the proles that are meant to work all hours [insert deity of choice] sends, not policy wanks.
I have contributed to the economy today by buying lots of beer.
😉
Sok 😛
Just as bad as their idiotic suggestion is their abuse of language:
Bank holidays cost the UK economy nothing, not a single penny.
The only way to think they did would be to start from the point that the “economy” owns you and everything you produce 24/7, and anytime you’re not being financially productive you’re taking money from the collective. Or in other words, you would need to be a communist.
But then if I was paying the bills for this alleged think tank I’d be quite happy to follow their suggestion and remove bank holidays from their contracts, after all they’d be ecstatic to be given the chance to boost the economy (although, admittedly not through ideas like this).
In fact I’d be shocked if they weren’t already working every hour of the day, every day of the week that they physically could :lol:.
So we’re all agreed, it’s a crap idea. Expect it to become government policy very soon then.
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MPs have accepted the findings and, to set a good example to the electorate, have decided to cut their holiday entitlement to a total of 2 weeks in line with the majority workers.
I think the bankers cost us a lot more than ‘£19bn’ a year. The government has borrowed @£125 bn just to bail them out.
We should get rid of them before we scrap bank holidays.
BBC News ran with this story this morning and produced some “expert” who proclaimed that we have more bank holidays than the USA.
Some fucking expert.
The official holidays observed at the World Bank office in Washington, D.C., are as follows:
New Year’s Day – January 1
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday – Third Monday in January
George Washington’s Birthday – Third Monday in February
Memorial Day – Last Monday in May
Independence Day -July 4
Labor Day – First Monday in September
Columbus Day – Second Monday in October
Thanksgiving – Fourth Thursday in November and the Friday immediately following (in lieu of Veteran’s Day)
Christmas Day- December 25
in Britain (England/Wales any way);
New Year’s Day Holiday January 2
Good Friday April 6
Easter Monday April 9
Early May Bank Holiday May 7
Spring Bank Holiday June 4
Diamond Jubilee Holiday June 5
Summer Bank Holiday August 27
Christmas Day December 25
Boxing Day December 26
Both nine days holidays. (Although “Diamond Jubilee Holiday June 5” is a “one off?)
Shoot the “expert” immediately!
And “Bank holidy” is not the same in every country. Here, for example, it depends on WHERE in Germany you are, as to whether it is a bank holiday or not.
Berlin gets three or four less than Bayern, who “celebrate” every arsehole the catholic church can invent, or pull out of a hat, and can remotely infer is a “saint”.
If the bank holiday falls on a Sunday, TOUGH! You have “lost” it.(Even in Bayern!) Unlike Britain, for example, where it is always the Monday following the actual date.
So comparing the number of holidays to other countrys is dodgy to say the least.
But the “Daily Mail” don’t want you to know that.
What the CEBR said was this:
“Should we reduce the number of Bank Holidays and make Easter Monday a working day as in the US? This is more a social than an economic judgement. Money is not the only thing and a healthy lifestyle needs time off to reflect and relax. We probably had too many bank holidays in April and May last year, when the combination of the Royal Wedding and late Easter combined with the May Day and early summer bank holiday to give 5 bank holidays in roughly as many weeks. Because people took annual leave to bridge over some of the holidays, business lost momentum and this probably contributed to the rather weak economic performance over the year. But in a normal year 8 holidays is probably not too many – though they could be spaced out a bit better over the year.”
http://www.cebr.com/?p=824
In other words, don’t cut bank holidays, but give a bit of thought to how they are spaced out during the year.
Franky, I’m quite happy with things the way they are, but if someone like the CEBR wants to suggest different days, then I’m happy to hear the pros and cons of it.
I’d scrap the Communist-inspired Mayday bank holiday and move to to the first Monday after Midsummer’s day. A nice day off in the middle of summer instead of a day off in dreary rain watching a Moscow march past of missiles and goose-stepping soldiers.
Actually, Mayday is a pagan festival. I’d keep that and add a couple of extra ones – mid summer time and early autumn. I quite fancy Trafalgar day myself.
XX Actually, Mayday is a pagan festival. XX
Most of them are.
Jule, Ostara, as you say, May day. But also “Halloween”, although not a bank holiday, is for us Einherrjer. Festival of the dead and the warrior. Which is listed in all Germanic and Keltik festivals since the year dot. Harvest is another.
But then, the calander is getting pretty full, when, as seems to be all the fashion in Europe, they “celebrate” every sodding “feast” and holiday in the world.
Rob – you are the man from the Adam Smith Institute & I claim my £5.
Seriously, this is the sort of right-wing arrogant, crapping-on-the-workers shite that gets people voting for statist Labour.
We need MORE “Bank” holidays, to break up the gaps.
I suggest “Fasching”/Shrove Tuesday/start of real Hungry Gap, and Trafalgar Day &/or Guy Fawkes or Samhain to break the Midwinter-to-Eostre & Harvest-to-Midwinter gaps.
Should see the holidays they have in Russia – about double the number. Constitution Day, Flag Day, federal day, local day, every second day a holiday it seems.