to ask why we still change the times on the clocks

[auntiepicklebottom2]

as the title says.

Yes..British summer time..Scotland is actually part of Britain you know

Yes..move eto Scotland or campaign for them in England

The SNP government is planning a referendum on Independence, but not until about 2014.

NearlyLegless: it gets dark much, much earlier in southern England in the summer. Changing the clocks makes quite a lot of difference for southerners on summer evenings. DH (who, ntil now, had always lived in the south) was shocked that it was still light at 11pm the first time we visited Scotland in the summer.

Why wait for silly things like a referendum or God forbid actual independence, just whack those border controls up now, according to some posters

I could never move to Scotland, it's too dark and cold

they are always banging on about independance, dont know if it'll ever happen

personally I dont really want independance

oh, and just whilst I'm being annoying controversial, I dont agree with free prescriptions, I got one from the chemist a few weeks ago and was listening to the assistant calling out peoples adresses to pick up their prescriptions, some of them lived in big detatched houses and then picked up a free prescription. This is so wrong. I earn NMW but I'd happily pay for my prescription. Different if you need a lot of regular medicines, but for people who dont and they work we should all pay..

Smarts =snarfs, silly iPad

Damsel I know that (used to live in the West Mids), but presumably you wouldn't be travelling home from work in the dark at 5pm or 6pm if it got dark an hour earlier in the summer?

Not all people who live in big houses are loaded

(and i live in a small flat)

I don't think Scotland should go independent either, I love being Scottish am proud of it but also like being part of a nation.

(goes off to put kilt on and tartan bonnet)

i know fanjo, but a lot of them sure arent skint

i just dont see how the country can be so debt ridden then working people get free prescriptions here, if you lose your job you should get free prescriptions, but not if you work, we live below the povert line but I'd be happy to pay for them, mind you I only get one in a blue moon

It might be getting dark at 6 in the south in the summer if the clocks didn't change, but not actually dark.

I find the whole independence thing quite intriguing, mostly because it's not going to be up to me (as I live in England) and I don't really care either way. I'm shortly going to be commuting back to Scotland for work, so independence would give me an international commute. That would be very, very odd indeed.

But we are now on GMT, the correct time for our geographical location.

Keeping BST all year round means we will never be in our correct geographical time zone and every country could then just decide they want to change their times.

If a decision is made not to change then we should remain the time we are now.

The free prescriptions issue is not as big as people make out. According to Scottish Government stats, before charges were abolished 50% of the population was entitled to free prescriptions, and 92% of items dispensed in Scotland were supplied to patients free of charge.

Also, spending on this means there are things you get in England that we don't get here. I hear a lot of talk about walk-in centres; we don't have those. There are also cancer treatments not available here.

Scotland is often called the sick man of Europe, and one of the ways the government is trying to improve health is by making prescriptions free. The UK government has decided other priorities for England.

you're right NearlyLeglessEuphemia, but i still think those that can pay should

apparently the farmers are prepared to concede on the change - but the article i read about it recently said that the plan was to change so that we were all on BST in the winter and then the clocks would still go forward the following spring so we'd be on BST+1.

my gut instinct is NOOOOO! the thought of it not getting light till everyone's at school/work seems really depressing but the studies they did showed that it being dark when kids were coming home from school was more dangerous than it being dark when they were going to school.

Does anyone seriously want to change their watches at the Scottish border? To have two time-zones in this small country?

The date of the change is now fixed - and a good thing too - at European level. We either have to stay on GMT/BST or go to BST/BST+1, otherwise known as Central European Time. I know the Spanish and Portuguese do the latter, but they are much further South so they do not have such variations in the length of the day as we do even in southern England, let alone in Scotland. So CET is not on; it's a matter of geography and astronomy, not of politics or nationalism.

So let's stay as we are. We manage.

How about hauling the UK into the Med? Day length sorted; healthy Med diet and lifestyle; everybody wins.

Nearlyleglesseuphaemia now you are talking :)

When on holiday in early October in Southern Spain I was actually really surprised by how dark it was quite late in the morning.

Maybe prescriptions in the whole of the UK should be "optional" pay? So, f you can afford it, and have a conscience, you pay. If you don't want to pay, or can't, you don't? Just a tick box on the prescription perhaps?

As has been said already though, the free prescriptions thing does mean that other treatments aren't available...

how about hauling some of that Med sunshine into scotland, we're all pasty faced and frozen here!

no wonder our diets so bad, who wants a salad when its dark and pissing down at 2 in the afternoon youcantellssd'snostrangertoafishsupper

Just keep it on GMT. That's where we should be, stop faffing around with it. Still the same hours of daylight, changing clocks doesn't magically create more. Just leave it alone and forget about it. Job done.