Last weekend Britain was hit by a disaster. This disaster will cost between 100 and 160 lives, double the toll from the July 7 bombings. It will raise Britain's carbon emissions by up to 3 per cent, equivalent to almost half of all aircraft pollution. It will weaken London's position as the capital of European business and finance. And it will bring misery to families up and down Britain, probably aggravating the biggest crisis in the country's public health. Why has this disaster not dominated the media headlines since Sunday, when it suddenly struck the country? Because supine British voters have suffered it so often that they now accept it as an inevitable act of life.

The outrage I have in mind is the changing of the clocks. This is a subject that is, for some reason, regarded as cranky by British politicians and media commentators. Yet it is far more worthy of serious discussion than many of the issues that dominate the public debate in Britain, not only because of its objective importance, in terms of road deaths, pollution and economic impact, but also because of what it tells us about British politics today.

Janice Turner recently wrote an excellent article on these pages about the emotional effects of winter afternoon darkness and the damage done to family life and to children's development by their inability to engage in outdoor activities after school, which is probably the strongest argument for shifting an hour of daylight from the morning to the afternoon. But rather than repeating the emotional and historic case, I want to look at the economic and political aspects of time-change.

Statistically it is clear that shifting our clocks forward an hour — effectively joining the Central European Time (CET) zone, which covers the whole of Western Europe apart from Portugal and the Irish Republic — would save lives, reduce energy consumption, encourage tourism and strengthen the international position of British business. Common sense also suggests that lighter afternoons and evenings would reduce childhood obesity and probably reduce crime.

According to all the polls conducted on this subject over several decades, this reform would be popular in every region apart from Scotland and possibly the North East. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents strongly supports change, as does the CBI and other business bodies. Even the National Farmers' Union is no longer opposed. Why then has nothing happened, despite many efforts by backbenchers and peers to introduce the changes I am proposing through Private Member's Bills?

Government apologists say that the case for changing our clocks remains unproven, but this is simply false. All serious analyses of the road accident statistics have clearly concluded that shifting an hour of darkness from the afternoon to the morning would have a dramatically favourable effect. These statistics are admirably summarised by a House of Commons Library research paper on the Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill introduced in January this year by the Tory MP, Tim Yeo, but quickly sabotaged by Government whips.

The upshot is that shifting to CET would save between 106 and 160 lives annually, including a very high proportion of children. Opponents of reform scoff that changing the clocks couldn't possibly save lives, since it would merely shift accidents from dark evenings to dark mornings. But people, especially children, spend far less time on the roads in the mornings than in the evenings: it is logical therefore (as well as statistically demonstrable) that shifting daylight from the morning to the evening would save lives.

Common sense similarly explains why energy and crime reductions are confidently expected from shifting to CET. Few criminals bother to take to the streets before dawn. And the most convincing conservation argument comes from the actions taken by all governments under real pressure to save energy because of war. During both the world wars combatant governments quickly changed their clocks to save fuel, the US shifting its time forwards just four weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack.

The business arguments for joining the European time zone are also compelling, since an hour's time difference creates genuine business obstacles. For example, it is almost impossible to reach morning meetings in Paris or Brussels from London. In fact, the time difference makes even telephone communication surprisingly difficult. Continentals typically go to lunch at noon, which is 11am in London, and return at 1.30, which is just when offices in London shut down for lunch. By the time the British businessman has returned from lunch at 2.30, his continental counterpart has only two hours left in his working day. As a result, the effective overlap between the working days in Britain and the Continent is reduced to just four hours.

But if the case for harmonising British time with Western Europe's is so compelling, why hasn't it happened? The answer is clear. Government and opposition parties have all been terrified of a backlash from Scotland, where public opinion believes (incorrectly) that dark mornings are more dangerous than dark evenings and regards any talk of time change as a Sassenach plot. But now that the Scottish Parliament exists to legislate on precisely such issues, this is excuse is surely not good enough.

Choosing the right timezone is a genuine case of collective action. It is not something that people can do for themselves and it offers a clear opportunity for politicians to make improvements in citizens' lives without imposing new costs on the economy or constraints on society. This is exactly the kind of pragmatic and effective government initiative that politicians of all parties should be trying to implement instead of meaningless promises about economics, foreign policy, health and education that everyone knows they cannot fulfil.

The refusal of successive governments to do anything about this points to the wide divergence between the perceived interests of Britain's political parties and the people they supposedly serve.

But the failures of past politicians can present opportunities to the new generation. The Tories, in particular, could make huge political capital from the time zone issue. By adopting European time as a manifesto commitment they would gain justified popularity in England, whereas in Scotland they have nothing to lose. By embracing CET the Tories could show that they understand the concerns of ordinary families trying to bring up children and also prove that they can work with Europe when the policies are right. Best of all, the Tories could back Gordon Brown into a corner over CET, just as they did with inheritance tax.

If Mr Brown opposed the time change, he would suffer a haemorrhage of support from English voters. If he supported it, he would yet again be seen to be aping the Tories and would risk a collapse of Labour's Scottish vote. Either way, this would be a sure-fire political winner.

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