British Summer Time (BST) starts this morning, Sunday 28 March 2010. After a long hard winter we are at last back to what I’d call British Sensible Time – or, to be more explicit, actually British (energy) Sustainable Time.
We know, all the established and critical benefits to health, safety and business apart, that using summer settings for our clocks the full year round would save energy as well.
We need to drop the silliness about Scottish cows (only a minority even of the Scots want to keep BST as it is, and they could do so anyway if they wished) and about not being like the continental Europeans (they’re human beings too), and start looking at the real, increasingly urgent, situation. The evidence has been examined over and over again (see here). In the energy stakes every little truly does matter.
Let’s put aside the urban myths and unsubstantiated dramatic demands when permanent BST was last tried, around 1970, for reflective waistcoats for children going to school. Something sensible must be done, and soon.
As they say, it’s time to get real and move on…. to permanent British Summer Time.