Neo-Liberals don’t like people having holidays when they should be working (they take holidays themselves obviously) and that perhaps is the reason why there is more noise around the August Bank Holiday.
It was moved from the first to the last Monday of the month temporarily in 1965 and permanently in 1971. It was not changed in Scotland. The situation has some complexities. Scottish school summer holidays start earlier and return earlier than in England and Wales. Hence a late August holiday would be during school term. In addition Bank Holidays do not have the same statutory status, and so may not be taken. However since 1996 Scottish Banks now close on the last Monday of August*
I tend to agree with the Guardian (Editorial) in 2019 that it would be better to move the holiday back to the first Monday with some important caveats.
Firstly the Editorial writer doesn’t know why the change was made. From the late 1940s there was pressure from the leisure industry, industry itself and the TUC to soften the focus on a summer holiday period that was very much around the end of July and early August including the Bank Holiday. It was felt that encouraging a wider spread of holidays was a good thing.
I agree but I think this has happened now anyway, although school terms still provide restrictions for all involved in education.
Secondly Britain does not have enough Bank Holidays. That doesn’t mean that May Day should be abolished and replaced with Trafalgar Day or Margaret Thatcher Day in the autumn. It does mean that we need to have at least one more public holiday between August and the end of December and the same between January and Easter. I’ve always favoured 30th January but I appreciate that is a touchy subject even 376 years on
Finally the Guardian argues that changing working patterns mean that Bank Holidays are no longer really special. It might be an idea to step outside of Guardian HQ in Kings Cross on 25th August and have a look around (albeit there is filming in York Way).
Not only are there lots of people working on the day who would probably prefer not to be (with pay), for those who are not working it is likely to be one of the very few Mondays in the year when work does not interrupt them. Of course I can take Monday off in any week but that doesn’t stop the mails and calls. On Bank Holiday Monday it mostly does though.
*thanks for earlier comments about shorter daylight hours! To leave error uncorrected is a sin etc
“…the nights begin to draw in earlier the further north you go.”
Only after the autumn equinox. Today the sun sets at 20:25 in Aberdeen, at 20:17 in Durham, and 20:03 in London. I think that it’s that schools in Scotland take their summer holiday earlier than in England and Wales. For instance, Edinburgh schools broke up for summer on 26 June and they returned for the autumn term on 13 August.