Is Sunday special? Of course it is. I tend to work less, have a lie-in, do the garden, see more of the family. Factories, surgeries, banks and offices close. This is no longer to do with religion. I just prefer a day a week to be a little special.
Is this any business of government? Since the 1990s Sunday has become steadily less “special”, above all in shopping and leisure. Now George Osborne wants to go further. He notes the growth of online shopping and the pressure from retailers to expand Sunday trading. His friends in the supermarket business hate the six-hour limit on big stores, which has given a boost to much-battered small traders.
At this point confusion enters in. Osborne appears to feel that, whatever he might want, this matter should be devolved to local mayors and councils. It should be for them to decide how Sunday should be for them. This makes the continued opposition of the SNP to Osborne’s move bizarre, since the question of opening hours would remain up to them.
The reality is that the working day, week and year is littered with state controls. Statutory holidays, bank holidays, working hours, underage labour are all restraints on trade. The idea of a “day of rest” is hardly radical. I certainly mourn the old Sunday, when the work-life balance emphatically shifted, when pace slowed, stress diminished, streets were quiet and neighbourhoods behaved as real communities. There were genteel absurdities, like some towns banning the sale of alcohol or 18-rated films. But they were quaint rather than burdensome.
Where Osborne is surely right is that there must be some areas of social intercourse where local people are entitled to self-determination. Britain has become the most centralised state in Europe. If the people of Scotland, London, or even a local parish council, wish to decide how they want to live together, then trading regulations, perhaps subject to plebiscite (as in parts of America), is surely one.
The test of Osborne’s conversion to decentralism is whether he really means it. What happens if a mayor or council wants to move in the opposite direction to what he wants, and seeks new curbs on Sunday trading? Will that be permitted? In town planning Osborne gave communities power of decision, but then only if they did what he told them. Would the same cynicism apply to Sunday trading?
