IT can’t be all that many years since everyone and his brother was swept away on a tide of emotion with the release of the Bob Geldof-inspired ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ record, which raised many millions of pounds for those less well off than most of us here in the so-called civilised world.

I mention that not to set off a similar exercise – although there remain many worthy causes, both here in this small community and elsewhere in the wider world – but to draw some sort of parallel with a very domestic situation here in the oldest possessions of the English Crown, the Channel Islands.

Am I supposed to be impressed and drop my glass of calvados in sheer astonishment at the news that several thousand Channel Island residents have signed a petition on the dreaded internet calling for employees to be given a day off in lieu because this year Liberation Day happens to fall on a Saturday?

I won’t go as far as one of that lot in the Big House did recently and suggest that Prime Minister Terry Le Sueur did not have ‘the testicular fortitude’ to take a certain course of action in respect of the pinstripe who destroyed hand-written notes of one of the most significant discussions he’s likely to have this side of his inflation-proof retirement.

I would have preferred the Member concerned to call a spade a spade and state clearly what he really meant – and probably get stamped on by The Boss or whoever happened to be chairing the sitting in the process.

However, what I will say is that in stating publicly that this extra day’s holiday campaign is a worthwhile one, Senator Le Sueur well and truly bottled out.

In wanting to remain on what is fast becoming a favourite political perch – on which those who are supposed to be making decisions and showing leadership ensure that not a hair is out of place while astride The Fence else they get accused of leaning too far to one side – I strongly suspect that the Senator is simply pandering to a vociferous (I prefer mouthy, but seeing we’re all being ultra-careful with words these days, vociferous will have to do) minority, most of whom, I strongly suspect, were little more than twinkles in their grandfather’s eye on 9 May 1945.

‘Do They Know It’s Liberation Day?’ I am tempted to ask. And do many of them know the significance of that day to Channel Islanders of a certain age? It is 9 May which is the important date to remember here, not the following Monday or a date sometime in the future (probably the day when the brats go back to school and the parent wants to recover from taking them to Butlin’s during the half-term holiday).

There is a sadly diminishing number of people left who remember those dark five years which started at the end of June 1940, and even those born during the German Occupation are now either retired or rapidly approaching retirement – always providing of course that they can manage to find the escape tunnel before that lot in the Big House decide to up the pension book age to 70 or even older.

That leads me to the almost inevitable conclusion that most of the 2,000-odd who signed up to this petition are not among those who have even the vaguest recollection of 9 May 1945, but who simply want an extra day’s holiday.

The fact that this year Liberation Day falls on a Saturday (and next year it’s on a Sunday) is not something which has suddenly arisen in 2009; it has happened every so often in the last 64 years, and every now and again some jobsworth with nothing better to do than pick his nose and look up the union agreement starts the big moan.

Thankfully, our legislators have so far resisted calls to amend the law and turn it into an early summer fortnight off (or thereabouts), as has happened when Christmas and New Year happen to be celebrated at weekends.

Let’s make no bones about it (and how I wish the Prime Minister would have adopted this attitude, instead of the wishy-washy ‘let’s please everyone’ stance he appears to have taken): this nonsense is not about celebrating Liberation Day appropriately at all. It’s about the grasping, greedy society that we have created, not to mention the ‘profit is everything’ attitude of the imported British companies which profess to be part of the Island but in reality haven’t the first idea what we’re about.

When I was discussing this with a neighbour, he told me that these days the hired help employed by our government who happen to work shifts and are at their jobs when the clocks go back in October now claim an hour’s extra pay.

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if it is, then I doubt there are any prizes for guessing how many of them give an hour’s pay back when the clocks go forward in March and the night shift lasts an hour less.
When this distasteful idea of an additional day’s holiday is finally binned, I hope that whichever of our elected representatives has the bottle to do it will also say that kicking it well and truly into touch has nothing to do with what my old friend Bob Le Sueur politely described as the current financial climate, because that’s nothing more than a lame excuse.

AND finally . . . I suppose it’s appropriate when talking of the Liberation to refer to the idea that the Tourism Department should move back into their old stamping ground at the former Terminus pub in Liberation Square.

I wonder if anyone is going to ask if this ‘chase the best view in the Island’ idea has been costed, and if so, what the bottom line will mean to those of us who foot the bills.