Berlin Time
Posted by Dave Cross
November 14th, 2010
This article is reposted from Davblog.
You might have heard of a campaign to move the UK onto the same timezone as Central Europe. There are a number of groups campaigning for this (see, for example, Lighter Later) and the proposals are going to be discussed in parliament on December 3rd.
Now, I don’t have any particularly strong feelings either way on this, but the arguments about saving a lot of energy by changing the time seem pretty persuasive to me. Of course not everyone is an ambivalent as I am and today the Mail on Sunday publishes an article by Peter Hitchens called “Don’t let them force you to live your life on Berlin Time”. The title makes it quite clear the direction that the article is going to take, but it’s astonishing just how ridiculous the article is. The blatant xenophobia is amazing.
But it is easy to see that since 1893, when Kaiser Wilhelm II’s arrogant and expansionist new ¬German Empire adopted Mitteleuropaische Zeit (Central European Time to you), German power has been forcing its ideas of time on the rest of the Continent. First in 1914, and with redoubled force after 1940, the conquered nations of the Continent were instructed rather sharply to shift their clocks forward to suit the needs of German soldiers and German railways and German business.
A map of the present Central European Time Zone looks disturbingly like a map of a certain best-forgotten empire of 70 years ago. Would it really be silly to suspect that the neatness and standardisation fanatics of Brussels and Frankfurt, who have abolished almost every border in Europe, devised the European arrest warrant and the Euro passport and the European number plate and the European flag – and imposed a single currency on almost every state – would not also like a single time zone?
In a particularly nice touch, there’s a black and white picture of someone adjusting a public clock with the caption “Forced change: The Nazis made occupied nations adopt German time”.
Now, there may be good reasons to object to this change but if there are, Hitchens seems to have missed them completely. Bringing the argument down to this disgusting “who won the war, anyway?” level is surely a tacit admission that Hitchens has no reasonable arguments against the proposals.
Hitchens does, at least, mention the benefits that supporters of the change expect to see, but he decides that “many of these claims are pretty much guesswork”. To back this up he points out that:
Shifting the clocks about changes less than you might think. The amount of actual daylight remains the same. It is just available at different times of day.
This is, of course, indisputable. But what Hitchens forgets to mention is that supporters of the changes know this. It’s the redistribution of the daylight hours which brings the benefits, not some (scientifically improbable) lengthening of the day. It’s a straw man of the most obvious kind.
The most offensive part of the article is the way that Hitchens seamlessly merges the EU with the Third Reich. He ends with this chilling warning:
If we are foolish enough to hurry down this path, it is by no means certain that we shall ever be allowed back if we decide we do not like it. Once we have fallen in, who would be surprised by a quiet Brussels Directive making the change permanent, whatever Parliament does? Now is the time to save our own time.
I’m all in favour of a debate about these changes. No-one would suggest making a change of this size without a full discussion taking place first. But surely those opposing the changes can find better arguments than this poisonous nonsense.
Categories: EU | Tags: cet, columnists, EU, gmt, peter hitchens, time
I’m not sure people are aware that ‘the amount of actual daylight remains the same’, after all the miracle works at the Express were promising their readers ‘to give Britain an extra hour of daylight all year round’.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Media Watch Project, Daily Mail Watch. Daily Mail Watch said: New Post: Berlin Time: This article is reposted from Davblog. You might have heard of a campai… http://bit.ly/cHwrmU #media #dailymail [...]
one of the things that makes me ever more pro-European integration is the amount that doing so royally pisses off the likes of Hitchens.
Godwin. Fail.
I was going to cite Godwin’s law, but I see Doctor F has beaten me to it.
The reference to “a certain best-forgotten empire of 70 years ago” is bizarre – I assume they’re referring to the Nazi empire. If it is indeed best forgotten, why does the Mail keep reminding us of its existence? You’d think the Mail would like us to forget it in case we noticed any similarity between the Mail’s racist attitudes and those of the Nazis, particularly in relation to Muslims.
Anyway, I doubt this has anything at all to do with what time we keep. It’s just another opportunity for the Mail to promote its well known xenophobic attitudes and keep their readers’ blood on the boil.
I might be terribly stupid, but isn’t Berlin in the same time zone as France? So not only Goodwin’s Law, but invoking some terror of Germanic temporal domination that even Germany hasn’t used in decades.
In the same way you can’t change the number of hours in a day, you don’t save any power either (any saving from lighter evenings are lost because of the darker mornings, and vice-versa).
Seems to me there’s no particular argument either way.. You pick your side and watch as absolutely nothing happens and we go on as usual. I’m sort of in favour of staying on GMT all year round, partly because it makes my life easier as the computers work on GMT (well, UTC) all the time, and partly because of a nagging feeling that greenwich at least should use its own time :p
When it comes to sinking to new lows the Daily Mail makes the Mariannas Trench look like a gap in the pavement. To say this article is crap is to malign faeces. I love all the insinuations about the Nazis, in an article that uses all the techniques the Nazis used to whip up fear, paranoia, loathing and xenophobia. Because he knows many readers will fall for it. Scary how some people are so easily led. If they weren’t this article would be just funny.
@Tony,
The theory is that you get energy savings because fewer people are up and about in the darker mornings. Everyone is around in the evenings – so moving the daylight hours to then will mean fewer people needs lights on.
Of course, it’s only a theory.
Thankfully I have no particular view on this matter so I’ve avoided the risk of being ‘outed’ as a Nazi collaborator.
Oh, no. Hang on. I might be hiding my sympathy for the change so I could be seen as a crypto Nazi.
That settles it: I’m against the change!
Ah, so the Mail admits that “Brussels” has “abolished almost every border in Europe”. And there was me thinking that Britain had the most porous/non-existent borders in Europe. I didn’t think they reminded their readers of the existence of Schengen as it goes against their whole ethos of ‘Britain is a soft touch for immigrants who waltz in here unchecked, etc etc’. Obviously when Schengen suits an argument (after a fashion) – in this case Euro-standardisation – then it can be mentioned. But only in passing.
Maybe Hitchens – who makes Mad Mel look reasonable – wants us to go back to the pre-railway days of every town having its own time. Maybe Switzerland should say, “No to the Kaiser and his imperial plot! We are going to be 24 minutes behind Berlin time to emphasise our neutrality!”
France did change to German time during the Occupation and never changed back. This makes it ridiculously light late in the evening in summer in western France. However as neither Germany or the EU are forcing the UK to do anything, it’s unclear what Hitchens is going on about.
Peter Hitchins.
FFS, as if anyone (sane) would take a word that barking looper has to say seriously.
It’s like citing those other poisonous & biased nutter cretins Melanie Phillips or Simon Heffer or even chief dick of them all Littlejohn as if they have the slightest shred of credibility outside their own ludicrously narrow ‘fanbase’…..when a mere mention of their name provokes laughter almost across the board.
Personally I reckon it’s just their sctick, a laughably exaggerated right-wing showbiz act for those that swing that way.
They can’t be serious, can they?
As for the clock change?
I don’t really care.
Do it don’t do it whatever.
If there are benefits then go ahead, the boegymen of Napoleon and Hitler long ago turned to dust, as if they can really imform such a ‘debate’ today anyways, it’s pathetic.
Doen’t the Greenwich Merdiian , at Zero Longitude, run through Greenwich? It seems to me that some of the above comments aren’t aware of that simple fact.
Summertime was put on during the war to help farmers by letting them work later in the evenings. Standard time is just that so please leave it alone.
@ Dave Cross
I don’t follow how there can be less people up and about in the dark mornings? I still have to be at work the same time every morning, dark or light, and that’s my point, I personally would rather stay with GMT as the thought of spending my entire working week in the dark, whilst all the daylight hours get moved to being enjoyed by others whilst I beaver away in the office, does nothing for my motivation levels.
Seasonal comment: has Mr Hitchins or the Mail noticed the recent trend for German Christmas Markets?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/dec/03/christmas-german-britain-towns
If these started in Birmingham 13 years ago (see article above), they must have started during (aaaagh) Winterval!
We tried this once (I believe when Wilson was PM). The result was VERY quickly back to as you were, due to increases in road accidents with children going to school !!
@Cate:
The point is that there is a certain percentage of the population that are up and about between 7 and 8am. There is anotther percentage of the population who are up and about between 7 and 8pm.
The first group probably contains about 70% of the population (I’m completely guessing at that number) and the second group probably contains about 90% of the population.
So there are more people about in the evenings and it therefore makes more sense to move as much daylight as possible to that end of the day.
@Roger S:
According to the debate in parliament last Friday, the results of the 68-70 experiment weren’t as cut and dried as you make out. I read claims that opinion polls at the time found the majority of the population in favour of keeping the new system.
Brenda
Unless you’re sailing the 7 seas it’s all pretty much arbitary.
Frankly, who is so tragic as to genuinely care about this abstract nonsense to be getting their pants in a bunch over this symbolic bollocks?
I can understand farmers complaining, a bit, but then they mostly work to natures ‘clock’ anyways.
The rest is complainingabout the prospect of change & what is supposedly ‘our traditions’.
Big deal.
I’m very grateful to Mr Hitchens for explaining to me that we human beings cannot force the Sun to do our bidding. Thank goodness for such well-read and intelligent individuals.
ADave Cross,
The relavent figure is not the percentage of people up and about at particular times but the number of households with lights on and consuming more energy. If you have a household with 5 people in it and one up and about and the others in bed then the percentage in that household up and about is low but that person up in the home is still consuming more power in lights, kettles and so on. It could be worse than that because if that person then goes to work and the rest of the family then get up then the usage goes up again. So the length of time that power is consumed probably won’t change much, if at all. So the argument you use is probably misleading at best.