For all of you who forgot to put your clock’s back you don’t need to shamefacedly admit you forgot – you can face your friends with pride and declare that you are following “Single Double Summer Time” in the interests of leading the country out of recession.

London’s economy could be boosted if the clocks weren’t turned back this morning,  according to the Mayor of London, after a study.  Adopting ‘Single Double Summer Time’ would mean that the time in London would be the same as that in France, Germany or Italy throughout the year. The change would be made by not putting the clocks back on the last Sunday in October (today) and thereafter putting them forward on the last Sunday of March and then back in October, in line with the clock changes in the rest of Western Europe.

If London set its clocks in line with Central European Time, we could see significant economic benefits accruing from the extra hour of daylight gained at the end of the day during the winter months. The study suggests that tourism alone could be boosted by between £240 million and £720 million a year, with tourist attractions able to stay open later in the day. It also reveals that in a recent survey by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, over a third of its members who responded believed that changing to Central European Time would benefit business. The extra hour would improve communication with the rest of Europe, providing an extra 40 per cent of business time overlap, and also enable London workers to attend morning meetings in Europe without needing to stay overnight.  It would also provide more working time in the morning for trading with Asian markets and these extra hours of business would particularly benefit London’s financial sector which accounts for 15 per cent of the capital’s economy.

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The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said:

“It’s barmy that a great trading city and major global financial centre like London is so out of kilter with the rest of Europe. We do immense amounts of trade with our partners 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.