Respecting Tradition

Anxious as ever to show their New Labour credentials, Daveybloke's Cuddly Conservatives have revived plans to do away with the May Day bank holiday, which has unfortunate working-class connotations, and replace it with a Britishness-oriented UK Rah Rah Day in the autumn, which would be a much better commercial proposition and hence morally acceptable despite the lower-class idleness involved. They have no plans to impose the change before 2013, however, as there are extra bank holidays this year and next because of the royal family, and it would never do to force employers to give their workers yet more days off when they ought to be thinking about how many they need to sack. Daveybloke's cuddly seat-warmer for Romford said that, while having a holiday for workers, pensioners or any other group (Christians and Windsors excluded) is self-evidently silly, it is "a very good idea to celebrate all things British", doubtless excluding such Stalinist impostures as the BBC, the National Health Service and the forests of England and Wales.