As Clocks Go Back, UK Uses The Extra Hour To List Everything Wrong With The Government

The official GOV.UK social media account posted a cheerful message on Tuesday informing the British public that the clocks go back on October 25th, and that this means everyone gets an extra hour.

It then made the mistake of asking what people planned to do with it.

Suggestions offered by the public included: sleeping through the extra hour to avoid thinking about energy bills; using it to read the Budget small print, which arrives on October 28th and is not expected to contain good news; lying awake for sixty additional minutes wondering what the standing charge on a gas bill is actually for; and giving it back, on the grounds that an hour in modern Britain is worth considerably less than it used to be and most likely to be taxed.

The Budget, which arrives six days after the clocks change, is expected to include measures to address a national debt that has passed £3 trillion, inflation running at 3.5%, and an energy cap that rises again in January, absorbing the £45 annual reduction in electricity costs that took effect in October and was gone before anyone noticed it had arrived.

The Chancellor has confirmed he will not raise income tax, National Insurance or VAT, leaving the public to speculate about what he will raise instead.

The income tax-free threshold, frozen since 2022 and now extended to 2031, means that everyone who received a pay rise in the last four years has technically had a tax increase, a process the government calls a freeze and everyone else knows is a rise.

Based on the available evidence, Britain is generally expected to spend the extra hour exactly as it spends all the others: furious, online, and waiting for something to get better. A YouGov poll is expected to confirm this next week.