Thursday 11 August 2011

We're all going on a Summer Holiday!

As Cliff Richard once harmonised from the driver's seat of a double-decker bus, going on a summer holiday is brilliant. It's a time when we can all flock to the seaside and have a jolly spiffing time. Nothing wrong with that. People arrange appropriate time off from work and off they pop; unless you're a politician that is.

As David Cameron scuttled back from Tuscany, because there was the slight problem of riots across the country, I was amazed that politicians still have an eight week summer break. Why are they immune from the general four to five weeks that the majority of the population receive as holiday time (except teachers of course). Most people have to book their holiday time well in advance, to ensure that their job can be covered whilst they are away. And they would be extremely lucky to get all their allotted time in one block. Yet all the politicians that run the country are allowed to bugger off for eight weeks - at the same time!

I'm not suggesting that politicians don't deserve time off, but as in any job you need to have adequate cover whilst you are away. So if the prime minister is away, surely his responsibilities fall to his second in command until he returns? Apparently not, as farcical side-kick Nick Clegg was on holiday as well and had to make a sheepish, but brisk return to Number 10, in the wake of potential meltdown on the streets of many major cities.

Surely these riots outline that the ludicrous summer break that politicians enjoy is a massively outdated tradition that needs reviewing. And as Cameron, Clegg and Boris Johnson bumbled their way to showing leadership, all I saw was three ex-public school boys, so disconnected from the people they are damning and supposedly representing, it was laughable. But that's another issue.