The weather is terrible and the forecasts worse – why do we bother with holidays in August? | Simon Jenkins

The British summer is still based on pre-industrial events. It’s time a government had the guts to shake up the holiday year

If you had booked an August holiday in Britain 10 days ago, then heard the weather forecast, you probably would have taken the first train to Gatwick. The forecast for the following week was awful – for storms, clouds, rain and “unseasonably cold” weather. In other words, another typical August.

In the event the forecast was wildly inaccurate. Where I was on the Welsh coast,...