Is this the summer of our discontent?

Remember Peter Dunne, Mr Common Sense? If it hadn’t been for those unfashionable bow ties, an ill-advised flirtation with the Christian vote, and a reputation for being a bit of a boring fogie, Dunne might still be in Parliament – maybe even poised for a second coming as the common sense middle-man in a polarising election.

Now retired, it’s not to be.

But once in a while the former UnitedFuture leader would come up with an idea so appealing in its simplicity he earned the nickname.

Extending daylight savings was one of his bigger triumphs, the argument presumably being that it was a way we could extend summer.

I’m not a fan; to my mind, daylight saving is a couple of weeks too long these days.

But I can understand why it had its fans. Now Dunne has done it again with his suggestion that we abandon all pretence of summer in December and shift our annual holidays to February.

This is a campaign I could get behind.

For starters, I imagine that for parents of young children it would be a godsend.

Christmas and New Year would be a short sharp break of a couple of weeks, then the kids would be packed back off to school till more settled weather arrived in February.

That has to be preferable to the annual ritual of spending the summer hols grumbling about the weather and pitching tents in the teeth of a howling gale on flooded campgrounds.

The cannier workers have known about this for years, of course. They’re the ones who smugly book their holidays for February, when school is back, while any of their colleagues with kids scrap over who gets to take time off in December and January.

The February crew return rested and tanned; their colleagues, meanwhile, are even grumpier after wondering where their holiday went and watching the best of summer pass them by from the office window.

Maybe there are logistical barriers to shifting summer that I haven’t considered, which is why it has never happened, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

But there could also be a political downside. It’s long been held that barbecue season can be make or break time for politicians in an election year as people bend their mates’ ears over their least and most favourite politicians and their pet political grumbles.

Since February is generally better barbecue weather, shifting summer could open the door to a whole new level of griping.

There’s a lot to grumble about right now; rising food costs, soaring mortgage rates, a tsunami of lost luggage and a daily litany of problems, whether it’s overwhelmed hospitals and a lack of nurses, doctors, or pharmacists; a disappearing workforce or hospo outfits being forced to reduce their hours because of a lack of staff. Even $100 watermelons.

The arrival of a more transmittable strain of Covid on top of the latest surge hasn’t improved the national mood either. Throw the weather into the mix and it all adds up to a long, wet summer of discontent.

On the flipside, it’s harder to stay grumpy when the sun is shining. So maybe there’s something in Dunne’s idea for a future government to consider after all.

The cannier workers smugly book their holidays for February, when school is back.