May Bank Holiday 2020: Hastings Leads the Opposition
On 8th June Business Secretary Greg Clark announced that next year’s early May bank holiday will be moved back by four days for the whole of the UK to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day: instead of Monday 4th, the new holiday date is to be Friday 8th May.
“It will ensure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to remember and honour our heroes of the Second World War and reflect on the sacrifices of a generation,” he said.
PICTURE: Mark Richards
It is not clear with whom Mr Clark consulted before issuing this edict, apart from the SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, whose chief executive Sir Andrew Gregory was quoted as describing it as “fitting”. It seems that the Minister has more or less unilateral power to change the date under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act (officially by Royal Proclamation, but the Queen is assumed to do as she’s told). However, businesses that arrange large or complex events on the basis of a settled advance diary, and communities that hold customary May Day holiday celebrations, have protested at the disruption, at short notice, of their planned timetables. An on-line parliamentary petition to retain 4th May as a national holiday is gathering signatures, and a demonstration outside the Palace of Westminster was due to be held on Tuesday of this week (after our press deadline) for the same purpose. Holidays on both days, 4th and 8th May, is the organisers’ preferred alternative.
In both forms of protest Hastings is being heavily represented – unsurprisingly, since the town’s two most famous and most popularly attended events of the year, Jack in the Green and the Biker Run, are both timed for the Monday.
Jack stalwarts Keith and Heather Leech were expecting to travel to Westminster for the public demo along with many ‘bogies’ and Morris dancers; so was Howard Martin, leader of the biker rally, and also Kevin Boorman, Marketing and Major Projects manager at Hastings Borough Council. Local MP Amber Rudd was said by Mr Leech to be “supportive’’ and “coming out to meet us”, notwithstanding the distraction of the outcome of the Conservative leadership ballot due to be revealed on the same day.
At the time of filing this report the petition had gathered around 5,900 signatures – more than halfway towards the 10,000 figure required to trigger a formal government response, but a big shortfall below the 100,000 figure which would force a parliamentary debate. The deadline for signing the petition is 4th September.
Organisers of the demo will be hoping that the issue will have gained sufficient media coverage to beef up the on-line numbers. In the meantime, current signatories of the petition can be identified, not individually but by reference to their respective constituencies. The digital map shows two constituency hotspots: Hastings & Rye, with 743 signatures and Bexhill & Battle with another 200-odd. But then where else do they holiday quite like us?
• To view the petition and sign if you support it, go to petition.parliament.uk/petitions/242483
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