National day plan ditched

why do i feel like i'm reading this from "the onion"?

National day plan ditched

AFP/File – Union Jack flags are waved by fans in Trafalgar Square in London, October 16. Plans proposed by Prime …

LONDON (AFP) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown's plans for a national day celebrating Britishness have been dropped, a minister said Monday.

Brown, who is currently battling to deal with the impact of the global slowdown, first proposed the idea in 2006, wanting a day of patriotic celebration similar to July 4 in the United States or Bastille Day in France.

Unlike many countries Britain does not have a national day.

The patron saints' days for England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are celebrated, though only Northern Ireland has it as a full public holiday.

The idea of a British day was also one of the key recommendations of a citizenship review Brown commissioned when he became prime minister last year, after overseeing a decade-long economic boom as chancellor under Tony Blair.

But Constitution Minister Michael Wills told lawmakers the idea was not on the cards.

"There are no plans to introduce a national day at the present time," he said in reply to a written question from an opposition lawmaker. There was no indication that the decision was linked to the economic downturn.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice later sought to downplay his comments, saying that while no decisions had been made, the idea was "still under consideration".

One minister floated the idea of turning the late August public holiday marked in England, Wales and Northern Ireland into a "Great British Weekend".

Brown, a Scot, is a fierce defender of keeping the United Kingdom united and campaigns vigorously against Scottish independence.

Nick Herbert, justice spokesman for the main opposition Conservatives, told the Daily Express newspaper: "First a national motto, then an oath of allegiance, now a patriotic day -- one token initiative after another in Gordon Brown's Britishness agenda has sunk without trace."

Brown's governing Labour Party "still hasn't worked out that British identity is bound up in our institutions, culture and history. It can't be re-manufactured by their spin doctors".

Chris Huhne, home affairs spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, added: "Displays of nationalism were never the British way."