Jacob Rees-Mogg Wants Somerset Clocks Turned Back 15 Minutes

Jacob Rees-Mogg Wants To Live In The Past

Jacob Rees-Mogg has often been accused of behaving as though he lives in another era - and now it seems like he wants to bring his constituency back in time as well.

The North East Somerset MP has tabled an amendment to the Daylight Savings Bill proposing that the county of Somerset should have its own time zone - fifteen minutes behind the rest of us - as it used to, until the 1840s.

Back then the whole country had its own time zones, each based on the position of the Sun, until the introduction of railways led to the whole of the UK needing a fully unified time zone.

"Where Somerset goes, I think the world would follow," Rees-Mogg declared, "and I think we would replace Greenwich Mean Time with Somerset Mean Time."

He does have mild concerns that it might cause widespread confusion to have Somerset in a different time zone to the rest of the country, suggesting that "the people of Somerset are so clever that they can deal with these things; I understand that in other parts of the country, people might not be able to cope."

In reality this is just a wrecking amendment designed to hinder the progress of the Daylight Savings Bill - which Rees-Mogg thinks is a "waste of time", warning that it could lead to Scotland keeping the twice-yearly daylight savings change after the rest of Britain scraps it.

But in the unlikely event that this bill is passed with his amendment attached, he and his constituents could soon find themselves permanently living fifteen minutes in the past.