VT-Day: For you, time traitors, the war is over – Mail on Sunday triumphs in its campaign to prevent Berlin Time being imposed on Britain



Forced change: The Nazis made occupied nations adopt German time

A plot to move our clocks forward by an hour has been killed off by Ministers – after the success of The Mail on Sunday’s campaign against ‘Berlin Time’.

Government insiders say an attempt to force us to join residents of the German capital in living an hour ahead of GMT in winter and two hours ahead in summer is doomed.

The result is being hailed as VT Day – ‘Victory in our Time’ – and it comes despite a concerted effort by so-called ‘daylight savers’ to force a change.

Pro-Berlin Time campaigners, who claim lighter afternoons would make roads safer, reduce crime and boost business, last week leapt on a report in a Sunday newspaper which said Ministers were planning a ‘historic move to shift the nation’s clocks forward’.

The article claimed the policy would be advocated in a new Coalition ‘tourism strategy’, to boost outdoor events and extend the summer visiting season.

The proposal was even backed in a Leader page opinion piece in The Times – perhaps appropriately, given that the same newspaper backed the appeasement of Hitler in the Thirties and Stalin in the Forties.

But a senior Whitehall source who helped draft the strategy, to be published next month, described it as ‘an idea whose time will never come’.

‘There is a passing reference in the strategy to the fact that some stakeholders in the tourism industry think lighter evenings would help business,’ the source said. ‘But it also states there are strong objections. It is a talking point, nothing more.’

And last night Consumer Affairs Minister Ed Davey went further, telling this newspaper: ‘At the moment there is no consensus to do this and unless there is a consensus across the whole of the country, including Scotland, Northern ¬Ireland and Wales, we will not act.

‘It would be unfair to impose this on them without stronger support. I believe the arguments in favour of changing the clocks need to be more convincing than they are at present.’

Thousands of Mail on Sunday readers joined our campaign warning of the potential nightmare of a change, which is backed by supporters of the European Union’s efforts to harmonise members’ time zones.

Research has found that experimenting with the change on the ¬Continent led to a rise in stress ¬levels, mental illness and pollution.

It would be met with particularly fierce resistance in Scotland, where politicians argue that the darker winter mornings would increase the number of road accidents and put children’s lives at risk.

The Royal Observatory at Greenwich: There was a real risk Greenwich Mean Time would be a thing of the past

The ‘tourism strategy’ proposal follows a concerted campaign by the supporters of Berlin Time.

In January, the Lighter Later group posted a message on its website asking its followers to ‘help get lighter evenings into Cameron’s tourism strategy’. The message said: ‘Remember we said it’s all about getting the Cabinet on board? Well, the Tourism Minister John Penrose is writing a paper outlining what the Government should do to promote and regulate the industry.

‘We know that lighter evenings would give a massive boost to UK leisure and tourism. If Penrose’s report recognises this, it could help persuade his fellow Ministers to back the change.

‘You know the drill by now – let’s tell John Penrose that backing lighter evenings is one of the best things the Government can do to support tourism and create jobs in this country.’

The group then provided a standard letter making the pro-tourism case for a change, which followers could sign and send to Mr Penrose.

A backbench Bill, sponsored by Tory MP Rebecca Harris, is going through Parliament calling for a cross-departmental analysis of the merits of Berlin Time.

Although the Bill passed its first Commons hurdle and is now in its detailed committee stage, it has little chance of passing into law without ministerial support.

Last night, a leading scientist added his weight to the arguments against the time change.

Warning: Our headline last November



Physiologist Malcolm von Schantz, of the University of Surrey, said: ‘The big worry is that nobody has considered the effects of the change on human health.

‘Spurious arguments have been put forward that we would save on electricity and there would be fewer road accidents but none of this has been proved.

‘We would lose our exposure to natural light in the mornings. We would lose the one window of opportunity we have to reset our internal clocks.

‘Our prediction is that this would lead to a delay in the sleep phase. We would stay awake later and sleep less so the next morning we would not be operating at 100 per cent efficiency. When that happens day after day, it can lead to problems.

‘I am also concerned about an American study which associated winter depression with food cravings and weight gain.

‘I feel very strongly that to make such a change without doing proper research into the effects on human health is irresponsible.’

During a Commons debate in December, Mrs Harris objected to this newspaper’s description of the measure as ‘Berlin Time’, attempting to re-brand it as ‘Churchill time’ by citing the wartime leader’s decision to move the clocks forward an hour to save fuel and allow safer journeys during the blackouts.

‘Daylight saving has been championed by people all over the country and across the political spectrum,’ she said.

But Malcolm Bruce, the Lib Dem MP for Gordon, asked her whether she was ‘really convinced that the people of London will be happy when they realise that in mid-winter they will enjoy sunrise 18 minutes later than Aberdeen currently enjoys in mid-winter?’

And Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg added sarcastically: ‘Simply, there is not enough daylight in the winter, and there is remarkably little that Government – or even a sovereign Parliament – can do about it.’

Last night, the Lighter Later group insisted: ‘The latest polls show a majority of Scots are now in favour. The farmers have dropped their opposition. The tide is turning.

Spaniards demand move away from Berlin to Greenwich Mean Time

By Tom Worden in Barcelona

Tyranny: Franco, left, made Spain adopt the same time as fascist allies such as Mussolini, right

As Britain considers abandoning Greenwich Mean Time, Spain is thinking of moving in the other direction.

The government in Madrid is facing growing pressure to switch to GMT and British ¬Summer Time.

Spain has one of the longest working days in Europe but among the worst production levels and experts say this is partly because it is stuck in the wrong time zone.

It naturally falls into the same zone as the UK as most of its territory is west of the Greenwich Meridian, but it has been on Berlin Time since dictator General Franco forced it into line with the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in 1940.

Berlin Time – officially known as Continental Time – is blamed by many Spanish businessmen for the country’s economic woes and long working hours. Campaigners including world-renowned chef Ferran Adria and former footballer Emilio Butragueno, now director of Real Madrid, are urging prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to move the country into line with Britain and Portugal.

Joseph Collin, a Barcelona-based businessman who is an expert on the time-zone controversy, said: ‘Our days are governed by the hours of the sun. Spain gets up at an unnaturally early hour because our clocks are set to Eastern European time.

‘People don’t eat breakfast before they go to work because it’s too early for them to be hungry. We don’t eat lunch until 2pm and we keep working late partly because our bodies are working to the natural time of the sun. The first step towards improvement has to be switching to our natural time zone.’

The National Commission for the Rationalisation of Timetables, which was set up to press for reform, says adopting GMT and BST would put Spain on the road to economic recovery.

A recent poll by newspaper 20 Minutos found 43 per cent of Spaniards believed their lives would improve under GMT and BST, while only 12 per cent thought it would have a negative impact.

Commission chairman Ignacio Buqueras said: ‘Spain is running on hours which do not correspond to nature. If we adopted the same time as Britain, we would make more efficient use of our work days and enjoy more time with our families and friends.’

Spain’s neighbour, Portugal, moved to Berlin Time in 1992 but the unpopular change was reversed in 1996 after it led

to poorer exam results as children could not get to sleep because of the lighter evenings and were tired at school.

There was also an increase in stress levels, insomnia and consumption of sleeping pills. More road accidents occurred during the darker winter mornings and energy bills rose.