Lighten Up!

Here I’m not referring to the advice I often receive but to the question of Summer (Daylight Saving) Time. The clocks go back this evening and each year at the end of October marking the start of the ‘dark nights’. This is always a bit depressing and in my opinion we should have the clocks set two hours rather than one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time in the summer and one hour ahead of GMT in the winter months.
It is an established fact that this would save lives in traffic accidents. This arrangement would also be better for evening sport and outdoor activity in general. It would also reduce the impact of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) as people, on the whole, would experience significantly more daylight. And, as is also well known, it would save energy too.
So why isn’t this apparently good idea brought in? It is reported that some people in very high places don’t like getting up in the dark, but I find it hard to take this seriously. Our farmers may grumble - and indeed they’ve much to complain about as undervalued contributors to the productive part of our economy - but I imagine that livestock go by other perceptions of time rather than how we choose to set the nominal dials on our timepieces.
I believe that most people in England (three out of four according to a recent survey) support such a measure - and have done so for a long time. But I understand that Scotland wants to keep the present system so that’s apparently that. In my view they should be told to keep their own time and go their own way in this as in other matters.
All in all we do need more illumination at home - not to mention in our national affairs and I suspect few people would disagree with that! The Government recently let a private members bill fizzle out and there’s little chance that the Government will see the light anytime soon. So no change there then!