390. The Holiday

The United Kingdom government has announced that if England wins the FIFA World Cup, the country will receive a bank holiday.

England last won the World Cup in 1966. That is sixty years ago. This means the United Kingdom has committed to a public benefit contingent on an event that has not occurred in six decades. This is a different approach to governance than most policies use. Tax thresholds are not set based on 1966 precedent. NHS waiting times are not measured against a 1966 baseline. The bank holiday is the one government benefit currently indexed to a sporting outcome that happened before the decimal pound.

Bank holidays in the United Kingdom are planned well in advance. There are eight of them per year. Rail companies issue notices. Employers notify staff. Childcare arrangements are made. Schools close. The economy adjusts. All of this coordination depends on certainty about when the holidays will occur. The proposed bonus holiday would require England to win the tournament. England is currently in the tournament. They are playing. Several matches remain. The last time England was in this position and won was when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister, the decimal pound did not exist yet, and the Prime Minister now making this promise was not yet four years old.

(Keir Starmer was born in 1962. The World Cup was won in 1966. Mr. Starmer has never, in his adult lifetime, experienced England winning a World Cup. He has offered to declare a bank holiday when it happens. This is either an optimistic gesture or an extremely safe commitment, and I find myself unable to determine which.)

The government could, of course, simply declare the bank holiday now. They have done this for other reasons: coronations, jubilees, significant deaths. These were not conditional. They occurred. The bank holiday was granted. The country closed for the day.

The solution here would be to adopt the same approach. This suggestion has presumably been evaluated. The outcome appears to have been: no, let's wait until 1966 stops being the answer.