Chris says: "Take Day Off for St. George"

4.30.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 11th Apr 2005

Hampshire MEP and Eastleigh Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Chris Huhne today launched a campaign to "take a day off for St George".

Chris wants the Government to declare St George's Day as a regular national holiday every year on 23rd April.

"We English should be as proud on our day as the Welsh, Scots and Irish are on the days of St David, St Andrew and St Patrick" says Chris.

"A public holiday would be the best way to mark the occasion" said Chris, who is pictured here with supporters raising the cross of St George in his garden in Dutton Lane, Eastleigh.

"We are one of the meanest countries in Europe about taking public holidays: only two other european countries take as few days off as we do. So we deserve another day off in any case" said Chris.

Chris is a keen supporter of the St George cross, which he flies from a flagpole in his riverside garden in Dutton Lane, Eastleigh. "It is the most beautiful, simple and striking flag in Europe" says Chris. "A public holiday on St George's day would be a perfect excuse to fly the flag".

"We English have made an amazing contribution to the world, and we should blow our own trumpet a bit more. For example, English is the most fantastic language because it has far more words than any other European language which makes it a lot easier to write song lyrics. But it is also now the world's language.

Chris says that even with an extra day off for St George, we would still only take 10 public holidays, less than the average of 11 and well short of France's and Italy's 12 or the 15 days of the keen mini-breakers, Germany and Cyprus, and the 17 of the top-scoring Swedes.

Only one other EU country - the Netherlands - takes even fewer days off than we do with just eight a year, while Lithuania is the only other country to match us with a mere 9 days a year.