By ANGELA GREGORY and RUPERT CORNWELL
George W. Bush has inadvertently thrown the international spotlight on a question dear to most people's hearts - how much annual leave does a leader deserve?
The question arose because Mr Bush has decided to take a month off to spend at his ranch in Texas, raising the ire of many in the United States where holidays are regarded as more of a privilege than a right.
Many Americans get just two weeks annual holiday.
As the Washington Post added fuel to the controversy by claiming Bush had spent 42 per cent of the time since his January inauguration on holiday, the spotlight has gone on the holidaying habits of leaders around the world, including New Zealand.
While George W. Bush stays home on the range for the northern hemisphere summer, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is off on his yacht, Russia's Vladimir Putin is wallowing in Soviet nostalgia and Gerhard Schroder, of Germany, is going cheap again.
In the southern hemisphere, Australian PM John Howard prefers to kick back at his house in Sydney for three weeks over January, reading books and watching cricket.
Standing out is Prime Minister Helen Clark, who is far more adventurous than her peers.
Last summer she took a month-long trip to climb 6960m Mount Aconcagua in Argentina.
She said leaders need good holidays.
"I actually feel sorry for the President of the United States. It is impossible for him to have a holiday where he won't be recognised and someone won't call.
"I would be 1000 per cent sure that even at his ranch he's got the phone, the fax, and the email going ... you would never get away from that."
She had had her first and only "total break" since becoming Prime Minister when she went climbing in South America.
"I could do that completely anonymously ... if I want a complete break I have to go overseas."
She said her position did not come with a job description so her length of holiday was whatever she felt appropriate.
Bearing in mind she worked seven days a week, she said about every four months she would take up to five days off. "But I am never away from the phone."
Russia's President Putin is spending the northern summer in Bocharov Ruchei, the Kremlin's official residence in the resort of Sochi on the Black Sea.
The Russian leader caused a stir last year when he ignored modern political practice by staying at the beach as the submarine Kursk went down with all hands.
One European leader with a taste for the basic is Gerhard Schroder. Dubbed the "Cashmere Chancellor" after he appeared in GQ magazine wearing a suit of that fabric, he is not one to pay for a flash villa or hotel, preferring to spend his time with wife Doris and 10-year-old stepdaughter Klara in a modest house near Pesaro in Italy.
Like any other German civil servant, Mr Schroder gets 30 days holiday but takes only 25 days.
The French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, is choosing to stay in the quiet surroundings of his modest second home in D'Oleron on France's Atlantic coast.
Jose Maria Aznar, Spain's Prime Minister, has abandoned his usual villa in Oropesa near Benidorm, after questions were raised this year about the businessman who loaned him the house.
Instead, he will be holidaying on Menorca where he will stage his annual photo-call, coming out of the surf to slick back his hair for the cameras.
One politician who has no need to borrow a villa from anyone is Silvio Berlusconi, the tycoon-turned-Italian PM, who will take his million-pound yacht to his luxury home in Sardinia this month.
The big loser is the French President, Jacques Chirac. Under siege after holidays to Mauritius, Japan and Morocco, he has been forced by public opinion to stay at the French equivalent of Chequers, the British Prime Minister's country residence, in Fort Bragancon in the Var region. It's an imposing, dusty relic, and Mr Chirac absolutely hates it.
In America, White House officials have billed President Bush's ranch stay as a "working vacation" that would allow him to mull over matters of state.
A recent survey found that almost a quarter of Americans did not take even the small number of days off allowed by their firms and more than 40 per cent took their laptop computer and mobile telephone with them.
In most companies, junior employees were granted 10 working days of holiday each year. Even at the top end, holiday allowances rarely exceed 20 days.
In New Zealand workers are entitled to minimum annual holiday of three weeks (15 days) a year, and Australians four weeks (20 days).
In Britain employees get at least four weeks' paid leave a year.
Time off can be tough at the top
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