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Britons drag their feet as calls mount to turn metric
Love of the old-fashioned pint, mile and other traditional measuring units has made Britain reluctant to convert fully to the modern metric system used across Europe.
Prime Minister Tony Blair himself admitted last week that Londoners were not in favour of abandoning the country's imperial measuring system.
"I think (Transport Minister) Alistair Darling has already given the answer to that, which is that we are not in favour of that," he said at his monthly press conference on Thursday.
The issue of updating Britain's muddled method of measuring weights, distances and other units has been a political hot potato for the past four decades.
In 1965, the country launched a programme to convert fully to the metric system but it was quickly interrupted and Britons continue to juggle with several different measuring systems today.
They buy petrol in litres but calculate their consumption of fuel in gallons (one gallon is equivalent to 4.54 litres).
Students are taught metric measurements at school but their parents invariably buy their fruit and vegetables in pounds (one pound is equivalent to 453.6 grams).
The country must stop measuring weight in pounds, stones and ounces by 2009, but the practice of measuring distances under the imperial system will stay.
Britons measure distances in miles (one mile is equivalent to 1,609 metres), speed in miles per hour and surface areas in acres (one acre is equivalent to 4,047 square metres).
Like most of his fellow citizens, Blair finds it difficult to switch miles into kilometres as he demonstrated on Thursday.
Asked by a journalist to convert 50 miles into kilometres, the prime minister said: "I suppose they told you that before you came in here...Er...It was never my strong point anyway this type of thing. Okay, what is the answer?"
This position is supported by the tabloid press in Britain and the Eurosceptics, who are often heard saying: "Give an inch to the Eurocrats and they will take a metre."
In contrast, the UK Metric Association (UKMA) hopes British road signs will be converted to the metric system by 2012 -- the year London is due to host the Olympic Games. At the moment, under European Union rules, Britain merely has to give a date when it plans to adopt fully the metric system.
UKMA said in a report published last week: "If the recommendations of this report are followed, Britain can join the modern metric world -- and do so by the time that the all-metric Olympic Games open in London in 2012."
Officially, there are "absolutely no plans" to change Britain's road signs from listing distances in miles to listing them in kilometres, according to the Transport Ministry.
"It would cost several millions of pounds (euros, dollars) and would be a waste of taxpayers' money," a spokeswoman for the ministry said.
The authorities predict such a move would cost about 750 million pounds (1.1 billion euros, 1.3 billion dollars), but UKMA has a much lower prediction of 80 million pounds.
The group which is supported by Neil Kinnock, a former leader of the ruling Labour Party, highlighted a similar transition process in Ireland, which went metric last year, as an example of how it can be done. UKMA also noted that Britain is the last country in the Commonwealth not to have ditched the old measuring method.
The voices in support of change, however, appear to be in the minority, even in Brussels.
Gunter Verheigen, the European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, has said he has no plans to pressure Britain to speed up its measurement conversion.
"I personally have a lot of sympathy for the pint and for the mile in the UK," he was quoted as saying in September.
(Source: EUBusiness)
[ 02-26-2006, 09:31 AM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]
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