Let’s follow the US and end this wind-up of changing clocks – David Behrens

And while it’s true that the so-called Sunshine Protection Act may have been helped along its way by arcane Congressional procedures which meant some Senators were apparently unaware it was going to the vote, its passing will create ripples on both sides of the Atlantic.

Indeed, as we adjust our own timepieces this morning, we might take a moment to consider whether we too should consign the practice to history.

The decision here is unlikely to be such an open-and-shut case, though, for if there is one subject that obsesses us as much as the weather, it is this.

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There have been many attempts over the years to align the UK permanently to either Greenwich Mean Time or British Summer Time and some have foundered for the most preposterous reasons. The powerful fireworks lobby, for instance, objected to making summer evenings longer because they thought it would reduce the demand for outdoor displays at parties and concerts. The proper response would have been to threaten them with legislation that would outlaw the perishing things completely, but our politicians instead capitulated.

And in 1968, when we briefly adopted ‘British Standard Time’, Westminster was forced to concede that we were not a nation that was prepared to get up and go to work in the winter when it was still dark.

The legacy of that experiment was the beginning of the health and safety culture we know today, as children were made to wear fluorescent armbands on their way to school in the grey December mornings. That’s now standard dress code at any time of the day or year.

The latest attempt to shake things up was as recently as 2019, when the European Parliament proposed allowing member states to implement summer or winter time 12 months of the year. It’s of little relevance to us now, though.

What may tip the balance, however, is the rising cost of gas and electricity, for as prices go through the roof we are reminded that the one of the principal reasons for altering the clocks is to use less of the stuff. After this weekend, we will be switching our central heating on an hour later – and if we adopted summer time all year round we could be doing so right through next winter.

That at least is a more pertinent reason to abandon GMT than the one given for adopting it in the first place, which was to synchronise railway timetables in different parts of the country. The train companies stopped running to time years ago so why should the rest of us have to?

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And Britain has a history of manipulating the clocks to suit its changing circumstances. During the war, and again in the harsh winter of 1947, we adopted ‘British Double Summer Time’, which saw the clocks going forward by two hours instead of one. Part of the reasoning then was that, like now, heating fuel was too scarce and costly to waste.

The American decision means that a new debate will almost certainly follow here, and it’s one that MPs will relish. They love issues with relatively little at stake, which distract attention from more important controversies that might cost them votes. And what other significant change to national life could be accomplished so cheaply?

Some may argue that taking the country off GMT would be counterintuitive. Greenwich is after all the Prime Meridian where east meets west, so the time zone is as British as red telephone boxes. But we got rid of most of those without inciting civil war – and when push comes to shove, most of us would willingly sacrifice tradition on the altar of lower fuel bills.

So as we celebrate the warmer weather this weekend, we might also allow ourselves to do as the Americans have done, and imagine a world where it’s officially summer all year long. It’s only a matter of time.

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