“Everyone likes an extra holiday, but I don't see why we should be singled out,” Wiktor Moszczynski of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain told the BBC. “It's true that Poles have made a huge contribution to this country, but so have plenty of other people.”

Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Liam Byrne has another idea: turning the August bank holiday into the “Great British Weekend” – an occasion for Britons of all stripes to celebrate everything they feel defines the national character.

Following the Labour government recent tough stance on immigration, Byrne said such a holiday would help show that Britain was a tolerant country.

“British people in essence want no more of newcomers than four commitments: to learn English, to work hard and pay taxes, to follow the law and to make an effort to integrate,” Byrne told the thinktank Progress this week.

But here again, there is a practical problem, points out columnist Billy Bragg in Thursday’s Guardian: the August bank holiday falls on different days in England and Scotland.

Moreover, Bragg writes, Byrne’s proposal “suggested a nervousness about the issue, that, rather than have a debate about what it actually means to be British in the 21st century, the government was simply going to hand out little Union Jacks for us to wave and hope for the best.”