A petition has been set up on the official Parliament website calling for an extra Bank Holiday this summer.
The date chosen, 21st June 2021 is not just the longest day of the year but marks the theoretical date that all legal restrictions on social gatherings will be removed in the UK. And what better way is there to mark the ending of the lockdown than by getting drunk in a pub or going to the garden centre.
As it’s on the Parliament’s official petition website – and not one of those other popular but impotent petition websites — if the petition secures 100,000 signatures, then it can be put forward for consideration to be debated in the House of Commons.
That doesn’t mean it will be debated, nor that it would even get a vote if it did, and the government could ignore it anyway.
If it was to be approved, then Monday 21st June tends to be dry, having rained in London only twice on that day over the past decade — although being typically British, when it rained on those dates, it really poured. So an additional Bank Holiday will either be very hot, or very wet. This is exactly what a Bank Holiday in the UK should be.
There are some practical difficulties to overcome though.
Depending on who crunches the numbers, Bank Holidays either improve the economy, or reduce it.
An additional Bank Holiday also needs to be authorised by The Queen, and has to have a fixed date. It would be rather awkward for the royal reputation if Her Majesty were to authorise a Bank Holiday for Monday 21st June 2021, only for Her Majesty’s government to extend the lockdown.
But, if all goes well, then we will be out of lockdown on 21st June.
If you want to sign the petition, go here.
Photo by Sandro Cenni on Unsplash
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