Is Britain being ruined by bank holidays? Yet America and the powerhouse economies of Asia also have more public holidays than here. The US has 10 federal holidays this year; Japan, where David Cameron arrives today on a visit to drum up business, has 15. In fact, only the Netherlands has such a measly allocation of holidays as England and Wales. Even Northern Ireland and Scotland have their own saints" days off. So, rain notwithstanding, I am tempted to tell the CEBR to take a running jump. But do they have a point? After all, why should we take time off on a date decreed by the state rather than when it suits us best? In a deregulated, globalised world, public holidays feel like a throwback to a time when we were a more homogeneous nation, when all the shops shut on Good Friday and it was possible to move around without spending hours stuck in a traffic jam or waiting at an airport. Then again, if people were not guaranteed some time off through enforced holidays, how many would ever be able to get away from work, other than for their annual leave? Of course businessmen don't like their employees taking holidays, but imagine how poor their performance would be if they never had anything to look forward to. Productivity improvements around a bank holiday more than compensate for the time taken off. People work harder to get work done before the break, and are likely to be keener employees after a long weekend off than if they were chained to their desks, There was a time, mind you, when we were renowned throughout Europe for our love of holidays. Pre-Reformation England used to have dozens of them, from Candlemas and Beltane Day to Shrove Tuesday and Hocktide. Many of these were celebrated until the Industrial Revolution. As he recounts in his diaries, Samuel Pepys needed few excuses to stay away from his office in Whitehall to celebrate some feast day or other. On Monday, May 30 1664, he wrote: "Lay long, the bells ringing, it being holiday, and then up and all the day long in my study at home studying of shipmaking with great content till the evening." This particular holiday was for the king's birthday. In 1871, it was turned into one of the four bank holidays, though by then it had been linked to Whitsun; it is now known as the Late Spring Bank Holiday. Pepys notes how the bells of London rang out on holidays, often to the distraction of tourists. One German traveller observed that Londoners are "vastly fond of great noises that fill the ear, such as the ringing of bells, so that it is common for a number of them... to go up into some belfry, and ring the bells for hours together for the sake of exercise." What would the CEBR have made of that? I am with the Gradgrinds on one point, however - our holidays should be more evenly spread throughout the year. We usually have five of our eight before the end of May, though this year the Jubilee means that two will fall in early June. Then apart from the late summer bank holiday, there is nothing until Christmas. The Coalition last year launched a consultation about switching the May bank holiday, introduced in 1978 as a sop to the trade unions, to the autumn, which would make sense, though we have heard nothing since. Perhaps what we really need, though, is a holiday that celebrates who we are. Just as the Americans have July 4 and the French July 14, the enthusiasm for the Diamond Jubilee has demonstrated a popular appetite for a day that marks our heritage and our nationhood. That would be worth ringing the bells for.