With Brexit still dominating the news, Ronnie Cohen looks at one of the biggest obstacles to completing our transition to the metric system: its perceived link to the European Union.
Continue reading “Straight bananas and the metric system – the EU legacy?”
Charles Dickens is enduringly popular for his memorable characters and his portrayal of the social evils of Victorian England. One of our regular readers, Martin Vlietstra, draws attention to an unexpected contribution he made to Britain’s long-running metrication debate.
At the beginning of the General Election campaign, Ronnie Cohen looks at the current stance of the main political parties and the position taken in the past by some of their MPs.
Continue reading “Positions of main parties and politicians on metrication”
On 29 March, Sir Tim Barrow, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the European Union, handed a signed six-page letter from the British Prime Minister to the President of the European Council, invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and confirming the UK’s intention to leave the EU. So where do we go from here?
Ronnie Cohen provides us with an example from his work of the additional costs that businesses face as a result of having to provide for dual measures. Imagine how much better off we might be if all such costs in the UK economy and throughout the world could be avoided.
We ask if it is time for supporters of so-called British weights and measures to come to terms with the fact that only two systems of weights and measures are recognised world wide, and British aka Imperial is not one of them.
Inevitably, the referendum result has led to calls for a return to some of the measurements that Britannia used when she ruled the waves. Ronnie Cohen suggests an underlying reason.
Ronnie Cohen wonders why at least one budget airline flying from the UK targets its flight information at continental and American passengers.
Continue reading “No flight information please – we’re British”
Readers may have seen a recent TV programme that was highly critical of the energy smart meter “roll out”. Some of you may now be wondering why a nation that made a mess of the simple task of adopting a modern measurement system is now embarking on a complex and expensive technology project of questionable value.
The Government revealed its new industrial strategy in a White Paper published earlier this week, generally receiving a positive response. But are there still elephants in the room?
Metric Views 