[LEAPSECS] Common Calendar Time (CCT) -Brooks Harris

[Ian Batten]

On 18 Jan 2014, at 11:28, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:

> 

> For instance I doubt you'll find any UK politician willing to push

> a s/GMT/$whatever/ legislation since that will just feed the UKIP

> trolls and become a factor in the Scottish independence referendum.


I'm not sure that's true.   The reason why timezones are a cross-border issue 
is that there is significant support in England for moving to CET, and the perception 
is that the reason we "can't" is because of "Scottish farmers".  Certainly, if Scotland
does opt for independence (on current polling and betting it seems unlikely, but
let's suppose) the pressure for England to move to CET will increase.   There's some confusion 
as to whether the proposal would be moving the UK to UTC+1/UTC+2 as happened 
during the last war,  or UTC+1 all year around, as happened in the experiment 
between 1968 and 1971, but on the assumption that the latter would have too many
practical problems the former would enjoy widespread support.

I don't see why UTC/GMT would have any relation to the Scottish referendum which, in
any event, is only 9 months away and will be a dead issue (one way or the other)
thereafter.  Anyone so red-faced and UKIP-y that the designation of UK legal time as GMT
or UTC mattered to them would be a lost cause for any sane political party anyway, so
I don't see them mattering.    The set of people who would vote Tory but would be
tipped over into Farage-ism by the nomenclature for time is not a major political force.

ian