Friday 13 August 2010

An Express clock-up

Today's Express front page leads on the launch of a new 'crusade'.

It is a campaign about one of the big issues of the day.

Well, not really - it's a crusade to stop the clocks being put back an hour this autumn:


Here's the start of Martyn Brown's article:

The Daily Express today launches a crusade to stop Britain being plunged into early evening darkness every autumn.

The Time for Change Crusade would give us an extra hour of daylight in the evening all year.

Prime Minister David Cameron said last night he would “look at” whether Britain should turn the clocks back each year.

The Daily Express is calling on the Government to move UK time forward by an hour permanently, bringing the country into line with much of the rest of Europe.

Our crusade has already won the backing of politicians and campaigners who say longer, brighter evenings would make roads safer.

He goes on to list a small number of people and organisations who back the plan.

But another paper had a slightly different take on the issue:

David Cameron sparked fury yesterday as he agreed to consider plans to move Britain’s clocks forward by an hour all-year round.

Ah, 'fury'. Where would the tabloids be without it?

The article continues:

English MPs want the Prime Minister to introduce British Summer Time throughout the year to give families one hour more of daylight in the evenings.

But most Scots are firmly opposed as they fear children would travel to school in darker mornings throughout much of the winter, risking more traffic accidents. Tourism chiefs south of the Border back the move to bring Britain into line with most of continental Europe, saying it would boost the leisure industry...

...the move remains strongly resisted in Scotland, where it would mean that in winter, the sun would not rise until almost 10am.

The journalist, Paul Gilbride, goes on to quote a number of people opposed to the plan, including the Scottish government.

And where does Gilbride's article appear?

Err, the front page of the Scottish Daily Express:


No wonder he blames 'English MPs' for wanting the change and forgets to mention the 'crusade' by a certain newspaper...

(Hat-tips to Adam Bell and Duncan Stott for the story, and Bryan McComb for the pic of the front page)

16 comments:

  1. woa woa woa

    the express actually says:

    bringing the country into line with much of the rest of Europe.

    they want the UK to be the same as the rest of europe?

    i never thought i would see the day

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  2. 'give families one hour more of daylight in the evenings.'

    why only families? will single people still have to abide by the old hours?

    i hate the way tabloids put everyone in families. it's only a little thing, but it's very frustrating.

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  3. Putting the clocks back, it's PC gone mad, isn't it? Another case of NuLab making us bend over backwards so that ethnics can have their supper an hour earlier during Ramadan. It's an outrage!

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  4. ....and we all know that it was under cover of late-summer darkness that MI5 did the brakes on Diana's Merc.......

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  5. Haha, the first six comments (I couldn't be bothered to read any more) on the online article totally slam the idea, one amusingly headed "Not this stupid experiment again."

    The online article too, is very poorly written, repeating itself every third paragraph or so. Is this a mistake, or is this the quality of the Express?

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  6. @sianandcrookedrib Indeed. I would have thought the Express would want us to go back an hour.

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  7. Why can't the Scots just start school an hour later in the winter thus it isn't any change from the daylight hours of now, just a different time to do things.

    With the global economy people are already getting used to working at different times compared to everyone else. I don't see a problem with getting kids used to that idea from a young age.

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  8. Even better, on their website, they link the Scottish story, Don't keep in the Dark, as one of the related stories to the English story, Time for Change. Whoops...

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  9. Good grief, not this hackneyed old chestnut again.

    I'm just surprised no one seems to have made the realisation that if we didn't put the clocks back in autumn, we'd essentially no longer adhere to GMT - or GREENWICH mean time. That's Greenwich in London, of course, the home of the zero meridian and from where all the world's time zones are worked out.

    Or are the Express suggesting that we essentially move GMT on by 1 hour? In which case, would this mean all the world's time zones also have to move on by 1 hour so that their time zones remain correct relative to GMT?

    It's obvious they've not thought this through...but then, what else would you expect from the Express.

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  10. But but... what would happen to Greenwich time!

    The answer is obvious, we should just adopt Mecca time, after all it would make some residents of that place happy; what better motivation?

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  11. @sianandcrookedrib

    It's not just "families" they do it with, it's "homeowners" too.

    I once wrote to the Guardian to complain after they ran a story that said homeowners would be hit hard by an increase in council tax - apparently those of us who rent don't have to pay it!

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  12. Haha, I saw this "fury" on the front of the Scottish Daily Express today (it was lying around somewhere, I didn't buy it!) but I didn't realise the English edition had the dismetrically opposite take on the subject. Fantastic.

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  13. Just leak a story to them that the EU plan to unify time across Europe and Britain is going to be forced to adopt “European” time and watch them to do a u-turn quicker than you can say…..

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  14. "Why must we be plunged into darkness every winter?"
    errrr, because it gets dark early in the middle of winter?
    I have never got the point of BST in the first place, but reading up on its history.....
    Starting on 30 April 1916, Germany and its World War I allies were the first to use DST.
    Oh dear. Someone tell the Express, please?

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  15. How about putting the clocks 1/2 hour back this October...and never changing again? It's a compromise with the benefit of not having to change the times of our clocks twice a year a year.

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  16. Me and my partner have had discusions bout clock changing many times..... We think its clock changing that has caused havoc with the weather/seasons.... Put them back an hour october then leave them alone..... Even the bees/wasps dont no what planet there on anymore!!

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