Jeremy Corbyn is wrong: we don’t need any more bank holidays

The sunshine was glorious. There was a new episode of Game of Thrones to watch in the middle of the night, and everyone seems to have forgotten about Brexit for a while. As bank holiday weekends go, it was a pretty good one. Under a Labour government, however, it would have been even better. Instead of going back to work, today would have been the St George’s Day holiday and we could all have slept in for another twenty-four hours. The trouble is, lots more state-directed time off is the last thing the British economy needs. Indeed, in a deregulated, flexible gig economy it is debatable whether we need bank holidays at all – and we certainly don’t need yet more of them.

In his four years as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn has at least perfected one fairly reliable political trick. He hands out lots of free stuff. His latest wheeze is four new bank holidays, one for each patron saint of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom.