Sunday, October 31, 2010

The latest declaration from the Autonomous Republic of London

President Lord Mayor Boris has spoken:
"It's barmy that a great trading city like London is so out of kilter with the rest of Europe."

"We do immense amounts of trade across the channel and all the evidence shows we have little to lose and much to gain by setting our clocks in line with Paris, Frankfurt and other big cities."

"It will also greatly improve the quality of life for Londoners, wasting less daylight while they are sleeping and giving them more options for leisure and play when the working day is over."
With London enjoying a splendid isolation from the rest of the United Kingdom, then sure, why not?



The original report analysing the effect of London going it alone with regards the time system is here.

5 comments:

andrewg said...

Did you read the report? The first line begins:

"This report analyses the potential impact on London of a change in clock time FOR THE UK..." (my emphasis)

There is no mention in the report that I can see of London going alone. The report is London-centric in its analysis, but not its proposals.

O'Neill said...

I did read it Andrew. I was trying to be ironic with the fact that the likely effects on the rest of the UK was completely ignored. Boris thinks it would work for London, the rest of us should fall in line.

The Aberdonian said...

As in so many things, the assumption is that if London and the Home Counties are happy/agin something etc then the rest of UK must be happy/ agin something etc.

To quote from the Rough Guide to UK, England, London etc something like this -- even in the age of devolution, London still dominates in British life. It is still a fact that if you want to get ahead in many walks of British life, you must get ahead first in London.

Something you are possibly pleased about?

O'Neill said...

It's a fact of life that I'm more than happy to live with. Just not happy with Boris dictating what time it is (and surely to goodness in this modern technological age, it's not beyond the City et al to cope with the fact that the rest of Europe is an hour ahead).

Madrid doesn't even bother opening up for much of the afternoon and it doesn't seem to do them much harm!

andrewg said...

What exactly is wrong with Boris saying that XYZ would (in his opinion) be good for London? Isn't it part of his job description to advocate policies that benefit his constituents? Considering that a) he has no power to make any such decision and b) no such decision has been made by anyone, your accusation of "dictating policy" is baseless. Also, a lot of the arguments (e.g. the road safety one) are made using UK-wide data - that's hardly "completely ignoring" the rest of the UK.