Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, January 21, 2011

Time and sub-nationalism

The reporter might have been having some fun with this one, but there's a germ of truth to the nationalistic sentiments. Scotland still issues its own currency. (And you wondered why the UK hadn't joined the Euro yet.)

Scots Tell London, Hands Off Our Clocks

The question was time, and whether to support legislative efforts in London to move it around in order to bring more light to the afternoons. The answer was no, said Jean Kaka, 67, a resident of this city far to the north.

Scots may suffer from afternoon gloom, but at least it’s Scottish gloom, Mrs. Kaka said recently, her words seeming to fade as the feeble midafternoon light (it was not yet 3 p.m.) receded around her, like color being leeched from a painting.

“They’re trying to tamper with our time,” she said. “England is a different country than we are, and they’re imposing this on us.”…

For more than a century, non-Scottish politicians have been campaigning to put Britain’s clocks forward an hour all year round — essentially, taking an hour of light from the morning and adding it to the afternoon. Proponents say the measure would save energy and reduce traffic accidents, while making afternoons less oppressive for commuters, schoolchildren and people in whom early darkness provokes anomie and existential listlessness…

The problem is that while a clock change might bring afternoon joy to London, it would condemn Inverness in the far reaches of Scotland — in relative terms, about 700 miles north of Montreal — to long, dark winter mornings with sunrises as late as 10 a.m.

Even worse, many Scots feel, it would mean giving in to English politicians. Though the devolution of British politics has given Scotland its own legislature and responsibility for many of its own affairs, the clock is still controlled by Parliament in London…

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Labels: cleavages, UK