May Day Public Holidays 1978-2024: a memorial to Michael Foot

 May Day Public Holidays: 1978-2024: a lasting memorial to Michael Foot

The May Day Bank Holiday on 6th May looks set to be somewhat mixed weatherwise as often befalls Bank Holidays

The current structure goes back to the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 which recognised the principle of a very small amount of paid time off for the new industrial workforce, and of course bank employees.

The framework has been tweaked since then to add New Year’s Day and differs in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Another recent addition is the May Day Bank Holiday. 2024 is the 46th anniversary of its introduction in 1978 by the Callaghan Labour Government. The Minister responsible was Michael Foot.

The Tories didn’t much like it then and many still don’t. Calls for its abolition and replacement by Trafalgar Day later in the year, or very probably a Thatcher Day, are heard from time to time.

The TUC’s view remains that Britain has the fewest public holidays in Europe- but by no means the highest workplace productivity- so a few more holidays in the interests of work-life balance would be a good idea whatever they are called.

May Day has been a traditional day of celebration, both of spring and of Labour and it is marked in one or other and sometimes both contexts around the world.

The introduction of the official holiday in 1978 did not come without some issues.

Firstly a labour movement tradition has been not to work on May Day, or at least the afternoon of May Day so people could actually walk out of work, even if this meant taking unofficial strike action.

The traditional London May Day March is still held on the day itself, and prior to 1978 strike action in some years was quite widespread.

The appearance of the official holiday can be seen as a way of trying to stop such- to those in authority- unfortunate occurrences.

At the same time the complaint of many in the labour movement was that the bank holiday was only on May Day itself if it coincided with a Monday. Otherwise it was on the next available Monday- this year May 6th.

It is interesting to look back on views of that May Day 46 years ago- when incidentally a BBC report complained that too many shops and public venues were shut to make it enjoyable. This was a feature of all British public holidays until very recently.

Fortunately we can do this via a House of Lords debate on the holiday that took place on May 9th 1978.

The debate was led off by Viscount Davidson who asked the question whether the Government thought having a May Day bank-holiday was ‘wise’ and whether they planned to continue with it.

The Tory Peer claimed that the idea of having a public holiday on May Day was a matter of ‘political ideology’.

Lord Wallace for Labour pointed out that the Christian church had for centuries celebrated May 1st as the day of St Joseph the Worker so the decision to have a UK public holiday was clearly a ‘very respectable’ one.

He went on to point out that the only bad thing about the 1978 May Day holiday had been that it rained but even the then Lib-Lab Pact could not control the elements. In response Lord Alport demanded that if the Government planned to persist with a May Day holiday they must act to ensure that the weather was better. It would be very optimistic to think that the present administration can forecast or influence the weather.

One might have thought the Thatcher Government after 1979 would have abolished the May Day holiday. Checking the Thatcher Archive however one finds that on Monday May 4th 1981 Mrs T enjoyed lunch with Denis, Mark and Carol, happy as others to have a day off.

In the meantime raising a glass to the late Michael Foot on 6th May seems entirely appropriate