This time is out of joint
PERSONAL COLUMN JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE, MP
We should know by now—we have been told often enough—that as a nation we are profoundly resistant to change. It seems to be one of the symptoms of this hereditary affliction that we must from time to time introduce a novelty for no better reason than to demonstrate our determination to overcome it. The present government has been responsible for several such innova- tions, and none of them has been a purer distillation of novelty for novelty's sake than the introduction of British Standard Time.
During the last war we indulged in a period of double summer time all the year round. This was reckoned to be a contribu- tion to the war effort, but it was unpopular, and in the more relaxed climate of peace- time it was soon abandoned, unlamented. We returned to a system of Greenwich Mean Time during the winter, and Summer Time from March to October.
This was a compromise arrangement which involved the inconvenience of advancing the clocks by one hour every spring, and putting them back again every autumn. It was certainly not a perfect arrangement: it meant the loss of one Sunday morning lie-in every spring, which we resented, and also the enjoyment of an extra hour's lie-in one Sunday every autumn, which for many of us more than compen- sated for the spring disturbance. It had, however, one great virtue: it took account of the climatic conditions of a country which stretches from the latitude of Brus- sels to that of Oslo.
Then, quite suddenly, early in 1961, following what was felt to be President Kennedy's outspoken gesture of visiting London as the guest of Princess Radziwill instead of the British government, it was decided that the perpetuation of the Anglo- American relationship depended upon British entry into the European Community. Civil servants who had for years obstructed every attempt to bring this country into a European grouping adopted Europeanism with all the indiscriminate enthusiasm of late converts. Overnight our bureaucrats set to work on plans for the decimalisation of our currency and the alignment of our clocks on central European time.
An elaborate consultative procedure was initiated, and all the accepted corporative institutions-- the cat and the TUC, the local authorities, the National Farmers Union, the Consumer Council and the Housewives League and I don't know what else—were asked for their opinion about the desirability of going over to summer time all the year round. The answers were what you might expect. After all, who could defend a ramshackle procedure of changing the clocks twice a year? To do so would lay oneself open to the accusation that one was resistant to modernisation. Besides, The existing arrangements meant that our man- agers arrived at their desks every morning one hour later than their counterparts on the continent throughout the winter months, and it was obviously unpatriotic to wish to perpetuate the loss of export orders which this involved.
But in one respect the response exceeded what might have been the civil servants' reasonable expectations. The Road Research Laboratory opined, no doubt after proper consultation of its resident computers, that the proposed change to pereptual summer time would reduce the number of accidents on the road.
Even at the time this forecast sounded a little rash. The probable effect of moving the sunlight back an hour, one would have thought, would be to reduce the number of accidents in the evening—and to increase them in the morning. And so, indeed, it has turned out. Faced with the accident figures for January and February, which showed an overall increase in morning accidents which more than counterbalanced the re- duction in carnage in the evenings, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Acci- dents has fallen back on the expression of a pious hope that `for comparison purposes January of last year [i.e. 1968, before BST came into operation] was a statistical freak'. But if so, unfortunately, then the whole evPrcise is going to become a little point- less.
To be fair, however, the Government did not try to base its case in defence of the Bill which it eventually produced in the spring of 1968, and forced through the House of Commons by way of a two-line whip, on its expected impact on road acci- dents. This, we were told, was just one factor to be taken into account. There were also the economic consequences to be con- sidered. although it was admitted that these, too, were finely balanced. No, the Govern- ment's contention was the curious one that those who opposed the change were claiming to know in advance what its effect would be, whereas the Government was much more modest; it just thought we should try it and see. If that was not novelty for novelty's sake, what is?
Originally the Home Office insisted that the change must be a permanent one, as `No, not "Rule, Britannia" this year—it's to be "Rock of Ages" in Spanish.'
otherwise people might have the effrontery to refuse to adapt their behavioural pat- terns as the Government thought they should. But such was the volume of protest, prticularly from Scotland and the north of England, where the morning darkness is most prolonged and most resented, that as a special concession it was agreed that there should be a three-year trial. In the event the `experiment' proved to be as wildly unpopu- lar as many of us believed it would be. Exports did not exactly soar; road accidents did not fall; even in the south the long dark mornings did not seem to impress most people as a perfect manifestation of tech- nological advance; and in Scotland BST was widely regarded as proof positive of the irresponsibility of government from White- hall. In the depths of winter Mr Callaghan was unwise enough to pay a visit to Glas- gow. The welcome he received evidently came as something of a surprise to him, and before he hurried off south again he hastily undertook to hold a preliminary review of BST after the first winter.
This `interim' review must now be just about complete. The balance of experience is almost wholly adverse. From the crudest political point of view the Government might be expected to seize the opportunity to drop BST here and now and hope that it would have been forgotten in Scotland by the time the next election comes round. For while the majority of Labour-held seats in Scotland are in the towns, where BST has resulted in inconvenience rather than serious dislocation, a number of Scottish Labour MPS are precariously attached to country constituencies, where the perpetuation of this arrangement is bound to add several extra thousands to the votes the party is poised to lose anyway. But Mr Callaghan is an obstinate man. He does not take readily to innovations, but when he has accepted one he sticks to it regardless of its un- popularity.
Fortunately, however, Sunny Jim is not the only minister involved. So I hope it may be constructive to offer a modest suggestion to Willie Ross, our Scottish Secretary. It cannot be said, in all charity, that Willie Ross has earned golden opinions in Scotland. Indeed if it were not for his unswerving loyalty to his leader, and the fact that his leader is not exactly a model of ruthlessness in disposing of colleagues who might make mischief on the back benches, he would surely have departed long ago. Nevertheless, his position must be regarded as precarious—particularly when a popular ministerial fellow-Scot, Mr George Thomson, is hanging around with nothing to do.
Now it can hardly have escaped Mr Ross's notice that Sunny Jim's is not his master's favourite voice these days. Let us suppose he were to say that he was not prepared to contemplate the consequences .of another winter of BST on his party's fortunes in Scotland. It is hard to believe that Sunny Jim's successor at the Treasury has been so impressed by BST'S contribution to our export performance that he would come to the rescue of his arch-enemy on trade union law reform. No, surely, Jim could be forced to choose between spon-
soring the of BST himself, or making way for somebody else who would do so. And if he chose the second course, whY think of the credit Willie Ross would gain at Number Ten for having launched the stratagem which disposed of that tiresome doyen of the Outer Cabinet.
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