Pledge “SaveOurDaylight”
"I will ask my MP to pledge his or her support - and vote - to stop the clock being put back an hour in winter depriving us of an hour's daylight in the evening but only if 50 other people will do the same."
— Victor Keegan, Writer (contact)
Deadline to sign up by: 30th January 2007
68 people signed up (18 over target)
Country: United Kingdom
More details
Research shows that an extra hour of daylight on Winter evenings could reduce accidents by 2,000 (and deaths by well over 100), boost leisure activities and save energy besides making us feel a bit better. The downside is even darker mornings the further north you go. But can't that be solved by flexitime or even a different time zone? Post your comments at
http://kickaas.typepad.com/saveourdaylig....
- donate $10 to Rep. Jenn Coffey and volunteer at least 5 hours of time to her 2010 re-election
- volunteer my time and energy to support keeping the branch libraries open for Evanston residents.
- contribute to the effort, "Give-a-Book: Help a Child Learn,"
- run at least 20 miles each week until April 5th,
See more pledges, and all about how PledgeBank works.
Things to do with this pledge
Comments on this pledge
Current signatories (
= they've done it)
Victor Keegan, the Pledge Creator, joined by:
- Owen Blacker
- Bob Doney
- john cole
- Danny Staple
- Craig Nicol
- hilary Burrage
- Sir Arthur Grebe-Streebling
- Allan Lewis
- Jon Cording
- James Berry
- George James
- Mark Cooper
- Alistair Kimpton
- Dr Iqbal Mohiuddin
- Dave Brown
- Warwick Varley
- Dan McDermott
- Louise Ferguson
- Keith McLuckie
- Emma Aynsley
- James G Fluss
- Jayne
- kassandra hart
- Ivan Horrocks
- alastair young
- sanysanych
- George Taylor
- S. Bassett
- Sally Ann Sadler
- Lester Noble
- Rebecca Coates
- Brent McDonald
- Phil Hallam
- Richard Thomas
- Alex Rankin
- lee noble
- James Rice
- Rachel Smith
- mike gould
- Kevin Comer
- Terry Walsh
- Hugh Nolan
- sam
- Lucy Jordache
- jim nettleton
- Matty Lyons
- Jo Titchard-Lyons
- ben tiller
- Pam Huntley
- Jonathan Bolchover
- Ann Roberts
- Keith Lucas
- Daniel Estermann
- Dave Padley
- Mike Sellars
- Laura Babb
- Gisela Overbeck
- Helen Heenan
- Kenneth Partington
- Al Hepworth
- Janette Menday
- 7 people who did not want to give their names
Philip Hammond MP
Runnymede and Weybridge
Wednesday 1 November 2006
Dear Philip
You may recall that you had an extra hour in bed last Sunday morning.
Research by the Policy Studies Institute suggests that your extra hour in bed will cost the lives of 100 people this winter. An addition 1,900 people will be injured.
The switch from British Summer Time to GMT is of course responsible for this.
It is my view that switching to GMT during the winter is a crazy thing to do, especially for people in the South of England. I urge you to pay attention to, and support, the private members bill currently going through the Lords.
I am sure you are familiar with all the arguments and will want to be considerate to the people of Scotland - but I don't live there, and neither do any of your other constituents. I'd like to remind you that your responsibility is to represent the views of your own constituents - anything else would be a violation of the basis on which you were elected.
Yours etc
Shadow Secretarty of State for Work & Pensions
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
Thank you for your letter of 1st November.
I think that our democracy works on the basis of enlightened self-interest and some degree of give and take - we would be in rather a mess if we always voted on things on the basis of the narrowest possible definition of our own constituents' direct interests. However, I take the point that you make about the switch back to GMT during the winter and I have passed on your comments to the Shadow DTI team, as they have responsibility for this area.
The Private Members' Bill which is currently going through the Lords is most unlikely to make it to the Commons and therefore I am most unlikely to have an opportunity to vote on it.
Thank you for writing to me.
Yours sincerely,
PHILIP HAMMOND MP
To begin with it is devisive, as anyone who has lived further north will testify. Running on Berlin time may not make much difference to southerners - it damn well will to northeners, and especially Scots. I appreciate though that this cuts little ice with this call - which invariably comes from urbanites in the south east - who do give a hoot for their fellow countrymen outside the cities, even supposing they know where Scotland is.
As for this nonsense about deaths caused by dark evenings, especially children... well, leaving aside the grossly - obscenely - inflated statistics if it were really THAT much of a REAL health and safety problem then the solution would be simple, and indeed would already have been adopted - ie. open and close schools half an hour earlier in winter. Indeed if the correspondents are that worried about it then getting their school to change its opening times is far easier than changing the law and mucking up things for everyone else.
And why is it such a big issue for the UK? I don't see Scandanavia running its clocks outside their natural time zones. I hear no call for Germany to switch to Moscow time. The French and Spanish may run an hour ahead, but that is largely the result of politics and the desire for a unified Central European Timezone than any practical considerations.
Leave things as they are. GMT is the natural time for this longitude. This demand is just another demand by the urban south east to have things their own way, and the devil take everyone else. And its time they were shown where to get off!
The extra hour in the evening would give us all an opportunity to get outside and therfore less time spent on the couch.
No to depriving us of an hours light in the morning!
SK Hampshire UK