Tories Keep Scottish Children in the Dark
There may be many reasons why the Tories want to keep Scottish children in the dark (my mind particularly wanders back to the Thatcher years), but I am intrigued by Tory MP Tim Yeo's new Private Members Bill.The Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill would advance the clocks across the UK by 1 hour, if it became law.
Yeo's research claims that although there would be an increase in morning accidents this would be "far outweighed" by a "big fall" in evening accidents.
A ROSPA estimate shows that this "big fall" could be as much as 100 lives saved per year. (Yes, one hundred!) As Yeo admits later on in his literature.
Of course this Bill would mean that during Winter most of Scotland wouldn't see sunlight till about 9.30am/10am (by my anecdotal estimate) - meaning people like schoolchildren will travel in total darkness.
But when have the Tories cared about what effect their legislation has North of the border?
We live in enlightened times. I suggest we don't support the Bill - unless someone can give me some good reasons to the contrary?
posted by Kerron @ 2:35 PM
12 Comments:
Forcing the Scots living in perpetual darkness would make the environment even more closely resemble their mood.
Maybe it's a clever Tory tactic to make the Scots even more pissed off with Westminster, driving them towards independence and thus depriving the rest of us of a Labour majority...
Dammit, Blogger really needs to have an Edit Comment function so that I can correct my grammar :)
It's an interesting theory!
To give Yeo his due, I believe his move is combined with an element to make this no longer a reserved matter, so Scotland could "choose" to go it alone and keep to the current model of BST/GMT. So much for the Conservative *and Unionist* Party.
Some Labour MPs are supporting it: David Chaytor, Bob Marshall Andrews and Des Turner.
I'm not actually sure (as a resident of Scotland with school age children) whether this would be a bad thing. As things are now we leave home at dawn (8:30) and get home shortly before dusk (3:45). This gives the children about 15 minutes of daylight to play in at either end of the day.
In the new regime they would get a whole hour in the afternoon. This seems like a step up to me.
It's always bloody dark in Scotland anyway
Bob Marshall-Andrews?? I rest my case. :-)
Kerron, are you trying to antagonize BMA now?! :-)
(actually I've to confess I actually tried to antagonize him once...sending a protest email to him...)
The schoolchildren of Scandanavia manage just fine.
who cares about Scotland anyway they have their own parliament to decide what they want to do so leave them to it!
That's the spirit. :-/
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