A Councillor Who Needs A Holiday (and I don't mean me)

Lord Hanningfield is the most important councillor in Essex - he's the leader of the Conservative Group that runs the County Council. He's now had a an idea. According to the BBC:

Lord Hanningfield, Conservative leader of Essex County Council, has called on the government to allow local bank holidays to celebrate local heroes.
"Helen Mirren is a great ambassador for Essex", he said.
"Ditch the old stereotypes, Dame Helen is the perfect example of the hot bed of talent that we have in Essex."
The 61-year-old actress was born in Leigh-on-Sea and attended school in Southend.
Lord Hanningfield added: "We want to celebrate her tremendous achievement in winning an Oscar.
"To celebrate this achievement I will therefore be asking the government whether they will allow us the power to designate a bank holiday in her honour throughout Essex."

There's a few problems with this idea:

Dame Helen really doesn't like Essex. She was quoted as saying that Southend is the "Armpit of England"

Having a local bank holiday might be popular with local government workers, but do we really help the prosperity of Essex by closing the banks, schools , factories etc and running the trains, buses, ports etc on a Sunday service- when the rest of the country is working?

If you really, really want to celebrate an actress born in Essex who isn't ashamed of the place - what about Amanda Tapping- born in Rochford and star of Stargate?