Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

... to think that having FIVE holidays...

106 replies

LostMyIdentityAlongTheWay · 20/08/2011 09:55

in a single year is taking the FUCKING piss?? As David Cameron has just started his fifth, I'd like to wish him heaps of shit and not a lot of fun. Seeing as he could barely be bothered to bring his to the yard when the rioting milkshake started (how gracious of him to finally turn up) this is just sickening.

People are KILLING themselves trying to make ends meet here (need I cite the AIBU stresshead threads about money, and the lack thereof..., I feel that pain!) and this is just ridiculous judgement on his part.

Or a total lack of.

ANd yes, I hate the fucking coalition, No, I think they didn't get a mandate to rule, I could boot Clegg quite happily up the arse - but these are all for other threads.

I heard about the five holidays on Radio 4 this morning and nearly spat out my tea!! Let's face it - he'll have at least one more before the year is out? He's entitled to a holiday, no question. But five???

Talk about how the other half live. Pah. Must be nice. Hmm

OP posts:
wideawakenurse · 20/08/2011 13:23

No, but we are all happy to have burnt out and exhausted nurses, doctors, and police officers aren't we. Hmm

magicmummy1 · 20/08/2011 13:27

No, I'm not at all happy to have burnt out staff in any of our public services. Hmm Where did I say that I was?

I am very much of the view that all employees should get a proper break from work, and I strongly encourage the staff I manage to make the most of their annual leave entitlement. Whether or not they go away will probably depend on their personal financial circumstances, and 'twas ever thus.

BadTasteFlump · 20/08/2011 13:31

Personally I don't care what he does with his holiday time. Five weeks is no more than most people get, and I would expect the PM of this country to be on a pretty good wage which would mean he could afford it - as can people in most top jobs (who also probably earn much more than he does...)

Am not a tory BTW.

wideawakenurse · 20/08/2011 13:32

Not you personally magicmummy sorry.

The point was in response to governments own policies on public services. But squeezing them as tightly as they are many of the staff are burnt out and exhausted.

magicmummy1 · 20/08/2011 14:16

Ah, well I'm with you on that one, wideawake. But we have a Tory government so it was inevitable that our public services would ve screwed.

Don't get me wrong, I hate what Cameron is doing to the country, and I am well aware of the squeeze on public services and the stress that this is causing. A very good friend of mine has lost a third of the staff in her department through voluntary redundancies and yet the remaining staff are expected to deliver more and more with less and less.

But I don't think that the answer to this is to make everyone suffer the same. And I don't think Cameron will do a better job by reducing his holidays and staying at home. Now, if he and the rest of the Tory party went off on one long holiday, as someone suggested, and didn't bother coming back....

magicmummy1 · 20/08/2011 14:17

Be not ve!

pixielicious · 20/08/2011 17:46

I am the only one to be getting quite sick of most posters' complaints about Cameron being along the lines of "he's a rich Etonian"?? I mean, why is the fact that he went to a good private school at all relevant here? For a start, I very much doubt when he was 11 he actively CHOSE to go there. He went where he was sent by his parents, as most kids do. And even if it was his choice, where's the crime in having money spent on your education when your parents can afford it? Would people honestly rather have someone completely uneducated and unsuitable in power just because their upbringing more closely matched their own??

cheesesarnie · 20/08/2011 17:51

hes come to cornwall twice i think,hardly exciting.infact it would be nice to hear of something else on local news.

yabu.why shouldnt he.

cheesesarnie · 20/08/2011 17:52

btw if i could afford it i would!

upahill · 20/08/2011 17:54

So is it just David Cameron who shouldn't take 5 holidays a year or everyone.

I get a 37 days leave + 8 statutory days + 4 unpaid.

I try and go away in my leave and often it is more than 5 times.

I can afford it atm and enjoy them.

I'm not a Cameron fan BTW. i just love going away.

smallwhitecat · 20/08/2011 17:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

ripstheirthroatoutliveupstairs · 20/08/2011 17:56

YABU. Well done pixielicicious for writing what I can't at the moment. When we lived in Thailand, we had, probably 20 odd holidays a year. We went for spur of the moment weekends to Phuket or Vietnam. The reason being, DH was well paid for an extremely stress making job.
Had he (and by extension me and DD) not had those breaks, he would, I am certain have been sectioned.
OP, you sound jealous. I am now, we are living back in normal land and have fuck all money. I don't begrudge DC, who as Pixie pointed out had no option about his schooling, any holidays.

foxinsocks · 20/08/2011 17:57

20 days is stat minimum plus the 8 public holidays. I know because I get it :).

Once you've taken days to cover children sickness, childcare emergencies and left a few for unplanned emergencies, there is no bloody way the average working couple could fit in 5 holidays (let alone the cost!).

Having said that, I don't particularly begrudge him. Am slightly envious of those who can do it tbh!

ll31 · 20/08/2011 17:58

I could think of lots of reasons to be unahppy wiht dc but how many holidays he takes???

VivaLeBeaver · 20/08/2011 18:01

Well one was a long weekend to Spain on an EasyJet plane

His last one was cut short by riots

One of the others was to Cornwall. This one is to Cornwall.

Doesn't sound too bad to be honest. I'm going on my 5th holiday next week if you count long weekends away in the campervan. Grin

VivaLeBeaver · 20/08/2011 18:02

I some how don't think DC has to leave any a/l days incase of childcare emergencies.

Original poster
LostMyIdentityAlongTheWay · 20/08/2011 18:39

I'm not jealous in the slightest. This is not a fucking case of 'he has it, why can't I?' Fuck's sake, I have made my reasons for thinking this stinks, perfectly clear. Judge me U on THOSE if you want, not on other things - like 'oooh, didn't Blair do the same?', 'you're jealous' etc. They're not the reasons I'm giving.

ALthough I think in fact, the whole thread is coming across a bit half and half in general...

OP posts:
LadyThumb · 20/08/2011 18:49

He's 'on call' 24/7/52 and you begrudge him 5 weeks' holiday? You are being VU OP.

foxinsocks · 20/08/2011 18:55

Nah viva, as they aren't really an average working couple innit

coccyx · 20/08/2011 19:06

YABVU, he is allowed annual leave. doubt he just switches off any way.
Just because you can't have something doesn't mean others can't

eurochick · 20/08/2011 19:08

wideawakenurse the person who takes the most holidays out of anyone I know is a doctor. She obviously works very hard when she's at work and makes the most of her time off. She goes away with her City-worker partner when he can manage to get away (usually only a couple of weeks a year) and with friends on other breaks. I think she affords it because he pays for the breaks they take together and she pays for the other holidays.

As for Cameron, I would prefer a well-rested PM who gets to spend time with his family than a brow-beaten workaholic. I think with hindsight he misjudged the "riot" situation. He should have come back earlier but on the first day it must have looked like a little local difficulty in Hackney. However, as the violence spread he should have been on the next plane out of Italy.

ragged · 20/08/2011 19:17

The Daily Mail says this is 5th holiday...Mirror says this is his fourth, not fifth. So I clearly shouldn't trust the Tabloids for this info... but what the heck, they are obsessed.

Tabloids say that they had the hol in Cornwall last year (when Flo born), and after that nothing until early April 2011 (he did cancel a Xmas 2010 hol):

Birthday break with Samantha in early April: 2 days
Easter Break with the kids in Cornwall: I can't find any definitive info on this, but I think it was between 2 & 7 days long.
May (half term?) in Ibiza: "one week"
Start August: Tuscany -- was meant to be 14 days long, but cut short to 7-8 days because of riots.

Now he's talking "a week" in Cornwall (which was announced before the riots, btw, so my guess is Tabloids have been sitting on this gem until now).

By the end of August he will have had 20-27 weekdays off for holidays in previous 12 months. Knowing that of course he works most weekends & evenings & takes work away with him on his "holidays", I don't really have a problem with it myself.

hf128219 · 20/08/2011 19:17

He's only been to Cornwall twice, Spain twice and Italy.

Hardly doing a Blair is he?!

ragged · 20/08/2011 19:19

Do y'all recall Blair saying that basically his kids would throttle him if they didn't get to go to the Seychelles one year?

AnnoyingOrange · 20/08/2011 19:25

we have four holidays booked for this yr - two single weeks and a couple of short breaks.

Seems perfectly normal to me

Swipe left for the next trending thread