Global Britain To Go Imperial?

Imperial or metric? Feet or metres; pints or litres? The overwhelming majority of countries on the planet are totally - or mainly - metric. Only Liberia, Myanmar and the United States use imperial measures exclusively (and the US version of imperial measures is not the same as that which has traditionally been used in Britain – a US pint is 83% of a UK pint, for instance). Britain naturally has to be different, and in this country we use a mixture of both, so that in a pub, beer will be sold by the pint (imperial), but wine is sold by the millilitre (metric); we sell petrol in litres, but calculate fuel consumption in miles per gallon (selling petrol in gallons again and so being more easily able to calculate MPG is actually a change I could get behind).

 

For those who supported the so-called ‘Metric Martyr,’ Steven Thoburn, the Sunderland greengrocer who was convicted for breaching EU rules banning the sale of fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces back in 2001, Boris Johnson’s announcement last week that moves are afoot to once again make it legal to sell goods using only imperial measure will no doubt make their hearts swell with pride as the country begins to make a bonfire of Brussels bureaucracy, albeit at the cost of creating many yards (not metres) of our own, home grown, red tape.

 

And when we raise our pint in our local pub, we will be able to do so in a glass printed with the crown stamp (which was prohibited by EU directives) instead of the CE symbol. Edit: The crown symbol on glasses was NOT prohibited by the EU, I have learned since I originally wrote this. EU law does not prevent markings from being placed on products, so long as it does not overlap or be confused with the CE mark). That is if the CO2 shortage doesn’t mean that the pubs have no beer. Who really cares what’s on the side of the glass though? It could be a picture of Yoda saying, “A pint, this is,” for all I care, so long as it’s a pint!

 

As The Times mentioned when reporting these moves, they are largely (I’d say solely) symbolic, another dead cat hurled onto the table to detract from the very real issues that the country faces. And precisely who will these moves benefit? Metric measures have been legal in the UK since 1875, the country went metric in 1965, long before we joined what was then the Common Market, and imperial measures have not been taught in schools since the mid-1970s, so they will be simply a source of amusement and confusion to anyone under fifty. Perhaps the move is aimed at appeasing readers of the Daily Express, the majority of whom are in their dotage and for whom this sort of thing probably is actually quite important.

 

Pippa Musgrave, a Weights and Measures inspector, was highly critical of the idea on Twitter (you can read the thread in full here https://twitter.com/PippaMusgrave1/status/1438559713604608003), saying – among other things - that we have a shortage of weights and measures inspectors, most imperial local standards and testing equipment have long been retired, and that Certificates of approval for imperial metrological equipment have long since lapsed.

 

Boris Johnson has said of bringing back imperial measures, "People understand what a pound of apples is.” Do you know what a pound of apples looks like? I for one don’t.[1] When I buy apples I buy by number, because I need one, two, three, or four (or more): Weight doesn’t come into it.

 

It isn’t as though we really need to bring back any more imperial measures, we already use enough of them. Now, I’m not a great fan of George Galloway, but he illustrated this country’s mixed approach to weights and measures perfectly with this tweet, although the point he was making may not be the one he thinks he is:

 

If I am typical – and I think I am – we British are fairly comfortable with a mix of metric and imperial measures. I use imperial measures for my own weight – I can visualise how much I or someone else weighs in stones and pounds but not in kilos (nor just pounds for that matter, which tends to be how Americans express weight) - but I prefer kilos for cheese or meat or other foods. Pints and litres are to my mind interchangeable, especially as milk (which I still buy in pints, or quarts) is labelled in metric and imperial. I prefer miles over kilometres – if a distance is quoted in kilometres, I have to convert it – but for shorter measures, like lengths of wood, or the size of a piece of furniture, then I’m happy with either.

 

A logical extension of reverting to imperial measures could be that our athletes once again have to start competing in races over a mile, or 440 yards; that our long jumpers measure their personal bests in feet, not metres, and that the length of our swimming pools is imperialised. Chances of those things actually happening? Non-existent, but someone probably wishes they would.

 

If we are being honest, how likely is it that any retailers will suddenly start selling goods where the weight is shown solely in pounds and ounces? Not many, I'd say; perhaps the odd market trader here and there may, but, as Pippa Musgrave alluded to, for them to be able to do so legally, they will have to comply with new trading standards legislation with all the costly new bureaucracy that that entails.

 

In a similar vein to Johnson’s jingoistic call to arms on the weights and measures front, at the recent Royal Television Society conference, then Media Minister John Whittingdale announced a new plan that would make it a legal requirement for UK broadcasters to produce shows that are ‘distinctively British.'  While most commentators believed him to be referencing such shows as The Great British Bake Off, Fleabag, and Derry Girls, the more cynical among us suspect that the shows that people like Whittingdale – and Johnson, probably – were thinking of are The Dick Emery Show, Are You Being Served? Mind Your Language, and Love Thy Neighbour.

 

No doubt many of the younger generation get fed up with their parents waxing nostalgic about the 1970s, but if TV shows like those I’ve mentioned were to get remade, and if the soaring gas prices we are experiencing continue, if supply chain problems mean more and more empty shelves in the supermarkets, and if we have to start buying fruit and veg in pounds and ounces, then we’ll all be able to experience the 1970s again!

 

For a government that has previously railed against ‘gesture politics,’ Boris Johnson’s administration seems keen to indulge in such a thing quite frequently, and while it’s been said that a supposed Brexit benefit was the chance to be Global Britain again - implying an outward looking, forward thinking, dynamic nation - all we seem to be doing with announcements about crowns on glasses, imperial measures, and Britishness in TV is retreating into insularity.

 

But we’ll know what a pound of apples looks like, so that’s all good then.

 

[1] I weighed some apples in Tesco this morning to see what a pound of them looks like – it’s two, two apples.