Ah but 1 May in which calendar?

Me? Pragmatism dictates it falls too near to Easter and Whitsuntide, so a day a bit later in the year helps spread the long weekend breaks around the year.

May day festivals as a workers' resolve to glory event smacks a bit of Lenin, old men getting the salute whilst missiles are paraded through the square and South America dictators telling their people it's for their own good.

However, my childhood recollections are of dancing around the maypole, (our school actually had one, albeit a portable one put up in the gym,) and more recently, a beer festival nearby.

Sorry, I don't see a Eaton conspiracy round each corner, and if I did, it would be for more tangible reasons such as using the financial situation to push through policies based on dogma rather than pragmatism.

May day? I reckon the PM has a point, it might be better for tourism. After all, he got his predictions from the tourism industry who have been lobbying for a rethink of holidays, and it is easier to move a secular day than to upset the God botherers.