EVERY year someone calls on the powers-that-be to make St George’s Day a national holiday - here are nine reasons that we think it's a great idea.

1. Day off work

We would hate to give the impression that, here at Warrington Guardian towers, our reporters spend their days dreaming about skipping out of our beloved newsroom and frolicking in the sunshine, but from time to time we do just that.

An extra day off in sunny April could also give pasty people all over the country a chance to start working on bronzing their white bits before summer.

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2. National pride

This country might be cold, grey and contain people like Katie Hopkins, but we love it anyway and we think it deserves a proper celebration.

The Olympics and the royal wedding showed that we English can do patriotism pretty well, so it would be great to have another opportunity to show it.

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3. Flag sales

None of us think about poor flag vendors when there isn’t a World Cup on, but these guys rely on major national events to earn a crust — a public holiday for our patron saint would give them enough sales to last a year.

It would also be a good opportunity to reclaim our beloved flag from certain “groups” who seem to have adopted it as their own (*awaits hate mail*).

And if flag vendors were more successful, maybe they could start making more high quality flags instead of those cheap tacky-looking plastic ones that adorn every house and car in the country whenever there's a football match on (also, see number 5).

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4. Paddy’s example

If anyone has ever ventured into a hostelry full of Irish folk on their special day, they will not need convincing that a day to celebrate a patron saint is a good thing.

If you've never downed a pint of Guinness and done shots of Baileys alongside excitable chaps dressed in green, then you haven't lived.

The English equivalent could be just as joyous. We could down pints of bitter and drink lots of gin. How could this not be good?

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5. Forgetting football

As alluded to earlier, the only time we normally drape ourselves in a St George’s flag is before we sit down to watch a predictably pathetic performance from our national football team.

A national holiday would give us all the same opportunity to get excited, drink beer and sing songs — without having the awkward interruption of seeing Roy’s boys slump to another defeat by Equatorial Guinea, or some other rubbish country that only cartographers have heard of.

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6. Spring is a drag

We need another holiday to keep us going between Easter and May Day. Man, that is a long stretch. It feels like a prison sentence.

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7. The economy

Every bank holiday in the UK costs our economy £2.3 billion, according to research by some boffins, so making St George's Day a national holiday would lose the country even more money.

As we all know, the love of money is the root of all evil, so this can only be a good thing, right?

The economy's in a mess anyway, so what difference is another £2.3 billion going to make? YOLO.

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8. Dragons

George killed a dragon. No-one likes dragons. They breathe fire and kill people. Except that tasty woman from Game of Thrones. She likes dragons, so maybe they're not so bad after all. Okay, forget that one.

Warrington Guardian: dragon figurine

9. Bankers

Hard-working bankers are the unsung heroes of this country. Our highly-respected financial services industry keeps this country afloat, and it's about time we recognised it.

Give those bankers another holiday. They need it. Wait... what the hell am I saying?