Having it so good
Lord Young was forced to resign as an adviser to David Cameron after claiming that people in Britain ‘had never had it so good’. The phrase is associated with Harold Macmillan, who used it in 1957, but he was echoing the 1952 US presidential election slogan of the Democrat Adlai Stevenson: ‘You never had it so good.’
—The Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, attacked Stevenson’s claim in a powerful TV commercial: ‘Can that be true, when America’s billions in debt, when prices have doubled, when taxes break our backs and when we’re still fighting in Korea?’
—Stevenson lost the popular vote 45 per cent to 55 per cent.
School holidays
A report this week from Teach First suggested that school holidays in England should be shortened. How do British holidays compare internationally? Typical school holiday time a year, in weeks:
8 – South Korea
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12 – Australia, Italy, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Singapore, Sweden
13 – South Africa
14 – England, Wales and Scotland, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland
15 – Hungary
16 – Canada, France, Ireland, USA
17 – Japan, Spain
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