From Norway and Sweden in the north to Italy and Spain in the south, Central European Time rules. This is Greenwich Mean Time plus 2 hours in the summer months and GMT plus 1 hour over the winter. It works for them and could for us in the UK, as it did in the war years.
We’ll get an extra hour in bed on the morning of Sunday October 31st – our clocks will have gone back an hour to GMT at 2am – but for the rest of the winter we’ll suffer increasingly shorter days.
This is what the
Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has to say on the issue of reform in a press release under the headline
Clocks go back and road accidents rise. “In the long term, RoSPA would like to see a change in the law so that evenings are lighter all year round. This could prevent around 450 deaths and serious injuries on Britain's roads each year.”
Labour ducked making a decision - the Coalition should have more backbone.
For the energy saving, international trading, and tourist industry advantages I refer you to my
post of May 13th. There I focussed on the bliss of longer summer evenings that would be our lot if we embraced double summer time.
Intending no disrespect to Scotland’s farmers who understandably don’t fancy working many winter hours in the dark at the start of their day, the Scottish Parliament could exercise its independence and legislate its own time standards.
This would leave the rest of us to benefit from a change whose time is long overdue.