Should St George's Day be a holiday?

[AB Asks]

St George's Day could be a public holiday within the next couple of years if reports are to be believed. There has always been a reluctance to make April 23 a countrywide holiday, but Scotland's decision to make St Andrew's Day a voluntary holiday last year could help inspire a change. Do you think that St George's Day should be a public holiday?

[NJOK]

Who knows, maybe some celebration of our Englishness might shift national pride away from the rantings of the far right to the things that our really great about England?

The sad truth is that, at the moment, some of the things that many people are proud to call British or English are easily twisted so that they do down other nations. Our bravery in the world wars is now used to slag off historical enemies (listen to the '10 German Bombers' songs that our football fans always chant abroad). Our identity as an island nation is used to discriminate against immigrants and non-whites.

Such a shame that this poisonous majority have appropriated the cause, but then maybe a national day of celebration will help to reclaim it for the rest of us?

My guess would be that that might take time. St George's Day is 3 days after Hitler's birthday - the day that neo-nazis across Europe come out in force. With St George's Day so soon after they'd probably be tempted to make a long weekend of it... Sad.

[cascarelli]

Of course, you could always just book a days holiday on that date if you really wanted to celebrate it.

Its not even compulsory to be paid for public holidays although it is usual. I assume all those saying 'yes' would be happy to lose a days pay?