How many bank holidays do you get every year? With a bit of effort, it could be more than you think

One of Jeremy Corbyn’s few definite policy commitments is to give us more long weekends. Well, like the old Wizzard song, I too wish it could be Christmas every day, but I don’t think the economy is quite strong enough for it yet

Happy bank holiday. As in the Great British tradition, albeit recently sometimes disrupted by climate change, it is reassuringly cold and overcast and the telly is mostly uninspiring. You will also, quite understandably, probably be having a day off work for reasons you don’t quite understand.

When I told a devout socialist the other day that he would soon be celebrating the international workers festival of May Day he pulled a face and pointed out that, no, here we all are at work on Wednesday 1 May. The connection between global class struggle and the administrative convenience of setting the date for the nearest Monday for a long weekend involving lager, pizza and boxed sets of Game of Thrones was not made. There you go, comrade.

This bank holiday is in fact the abiding legacy of that great lefty romantic Michael Foot, who introduced it while a senior minister in the 1974-79 Labour government. By the way, you also have Foot to thank for the fact that you don’t “lose” a day off if, say, Christmas Day falls on a weekend.

Anyway the first May bank holiday’s significance, combining ancient folk superstitions about the coming of summer with more recent superstitions about international worker solidarity is pretty much lost. How many of us can explain why we have a holiday to celebrate Whitsuntide (on Monday 27 May, for your diary). What is Whitsun? What is Boxing Day for? What is the point of the bank holiday in early August (Scotland), or in late August (rest of the UK).

Like all of the rest, the May Day bank holiday is really just another excuse for a long weekend. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and some would like many more.

One of Jeremy Corbyn’s few definite policy commitments is to introduce more of them. Well, like the old Wizzard song – and Corbyn does boast a passing resemblance to Roy Wood – I too wish it could be Christmas every day, but I don’t think the economy is quite strong enough for it yet. Leastways not until Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism arrives, and we’ve got robots doing all the work and everything.

We have bank holidays, historically speaking, partly because we needed them so that workers in bank branches could cash up. Well nowadays we have many fewer bank branches, and less and less use of cash. Indeed you can buy anything you like on a bank holiday online or in person. Time then to modernise the system.

We could keep all the existing holidays and add some new modern ones to them. We should be able to spend a few days a year celebrating the life and achievements of great national heroes, not just saints and religious days that few observe. Or we could highlight other great national events or international moments.

We could celebrate a Windrush Day, for example, on 22 June, after the day in 1948 when it docked in Tilbury with its 492 passengers from the Caribbean. The day is already officially established, but not yet as a national holiday.

Another day might be Churchill’s birthday – 30 November (1874), nicely bridging that huge gap in UK bank holidays between August and Christmas. There’s also the great festival of Eid (4-5 June this year), International Women’s Day (next 8 March), International Men’s Day (19 November), and World Poetry Day (21 March). You might, or might not, wish to celebrate Brexit Day – a moveable feast so moveable it may never happen.

How to choose? Well why not a great debate after which we can choose our favourite in a national referendum?

Now there’s a good idea.