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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Polly Toynbee

For today, even republicans like me can put up with the pomp with a drink in hand

Republic Polly Toynbee Republican Boris Johnson Graham Smith Queen Elizabeth II
The Queen and Prince Charles watch a special flypast from the Buckingham Palace balcony.
The Queen and Prince Charles watch a special flypast from the Buckingham Palace balcony. Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images

As the Sex Pistols said back in 1977, the year of the silver jubilee, never mind the bollocks. It really doesn’t matter what it’s for – just seize the moment: an extra bank holiday for this miserable country, which has the fewest national holidays in Europe and the second fewest in the world. England and Wales have just eight, Northern Ireland 10, Scotland 11; by contrast Europe averages 12.8, and Japan has 17.

Enjoy a release from England’s grindstone working culture, whipped on by cabinet luminaries Liz Truss, Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng and Dominic Raab, who in 2012 damned British workers as “the worst idlers in the world” in their obnoxious book Britannia Unchained.

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