London Restaurant News

St. George's Day Campaign

Gary Blake
LondonEats.com

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Help celebrate England's patron saint on April 23rd…

St. George's Day Campaign

Who Was St. George (The Victory Bringer) Anyway?

The dragon-slaying legend of St. George is difficult to separate from the actual facts surrounding the man. He has been Patron Saint of England since at least the reign of Edward III in the 14th century and universally recognised as a Saint for some 1,600 years.

Probably he was born in Turkey (or Georgia) and grew up in Palestine. It is doubtful that he ever set foot in England. St. George is Patron Saint of many other countries besides England, including Canada, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Russia.

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The Irish (both Republic and Northern Ireland) have a public holiday to celebrate St. Patrick's day - so why can't the English have one for St. George?

Continental Europe has more public holidays than the UK, so why can't the Government allow us one more day? Maybe the Government is concerned about the English then also being in favour of devolving Britain or, maybe it's just the fact that there are already Easter and May public holidays either side of April 23rd?

We at LondonEats.com decided to write to the government to get their view, this was the response from Mr. Jim Logan at the Department of Trade and Industry (the people who decide our public holidays for us)...

"...the introduction of a permanent additional bank holiday would provide problems for the business community, who are likely to oppose such a move on the grounds of the cost and disruption to industry that would be inevitably involved."

We don't believe this to be true and even if it is, we feel the working people of England should decide, not heads of industry. The government also said that they have introduced the Working Time directive to try and combat the number of hours that people work. But in our experience a lot of employers ask their staff to sign-away this right. The government also said ...

"...extra pay on bank holidays is dependent on the terms of an employee's contract of employment. Where a worker is paid for such a holiday, this will count towards the entitlement to leave".

A bank or public holiday is in addition to the number of days holiday given to an employee. The government seems to be very concerned about the 'business community' - well we feel that it is time that the majority are heard and this is how you can do it.

1. View our St. George’s Day poll results. There is a poll for the bank holiday campaign and one for celebrating St. George.

2. Email or write to Mr. Jim Logan and tell him how you feel about this. The email address is Jim.Logan@IRDV.dti.gov.uk and the mailing address is DTI Enquiry Unit, 1 Victoria Street, London. SW1H 0ET.

3. Celebrate St. George's Day on April 23rd. Go to an English restaurant or pub. Some other LondonEats.com recommendations.

We hope that maybe not this year, maybe not the next, but one day and soon - St. George, the patron saint of England will be remembered and respected throughout this green and pleasant land. England has always had a troubled conscious about being patriotic, but we're sure it can be done without being at the same time xenophobic.

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