On Fri, 20 Oct 2000 22:47:17 +0100, you wrote:
>> Dear Mr Moseley,
>>
>> If your letter is selected for publication in either New Scientist's Letters
>> to the Editor section or the magazine's website letters page, our lawyers
>> will want to know what your association was regarding the Thorburn incident.
>> You say that the tabloid press did its best to suppress the fact that the
>> law was about to change,...that Mr Thorburn would have received at least one
>> advice visit etc... and that he received one visit in which he was given 28
>> days written warning. I need to know how you knew these things and how you
>> knew about the fate of Mr Shrimpton.
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>> RICHARD FIFIELD
>> Executive Editor New Scientist
>>
>> Your original message:
>> It was unusual to see a pro-metric article in the UK press (Let them eat
>> kilos!
Excellent letter, Ian! At least you got a reply, which is more than I
have.
I'm not sure how much I can help, as things have got a bit blurred
over the weeks, with information coming from various sources,
including yourself.
I do know that the 'fate of Mr Shrimpton' as he puts it is in the
public domain, inasmuch that the Sunderland LA were quoted in the
Sunderland Echo and the Telegraph as having an alternative legal
opinion: "Advice obtained from a leading QC by the Local Authorities'
Co-ordinating Body on Trading Standards has confirmed that the laws
relating to metrication are valid and the council's own barrister has
confirmed that the seizure of the scales was lawful.
"The local authority has a statutory duty to enforce weights and
measures legislation passed by central Government in the interests of
consumers."
From the Guardian last month: "The council claimed he had failed to
comply with a notice issued by its officers to convert to metric
measures."
The Telegraph: "He had been served with a notice by Sunderland city
council's trading standards department warning him of court action
unless he complied with metric measures."
"A Sunderland city council spokesman said: "Our advice from the DTI is
that our legislation is perfectly valid. From Jan 1, it has been
illegal to use machinery weighing imperial measures. If metric
equipment is not installed the imperial machinery can be seized with a
view to forfeiture."
As far as the press trying to suppress information, I do remember that
when the extension for supplementary labelling was announced, it was
reported on teletext news as 'the pound survives for another 10
years', and I'm sure that similar reporting appeared in the press.
From the Telegraph last year (July): "Imperial weights win EU reprieve
By David Bamber, Home Affairs Correspondent
BRITISH shoppers will be able to go on buying fresh goods such as
potatoes using pounds and ounces for at least the next 10 years, the
Government has announced. The European Union has shelved its plan to
force shops to sell loose fresh produce in metric measurements until
at least 2009, after an outcry from pensioners' groups and
shopkeepers. Last night Regina Dollar, a spokesman for the Consumer
Protection Council, said the move was a "victory for common sense".
She said: "This is the best news there could be. Most shoppers are fed
up with this metrication, they just don't want to know."
The EU has been struggling to scrap the imperial weights and measures
used in Britain ever since the country joined the Common Market. It
has already succeeded in replacing most imperial measurements with
their metric equivalents.
Under previous EU directives, shops already have to sell and milk and
petrol in litres rather than pints and gallons. Pre-packed food must
be sold by the kilo and this was to have been extended to fresh
produce such as fruit and vegetables from Jan 1, 2000.
But now Stephen Byers, the Trade and Industry Secretary, has won a
reprieve for the traditional weights for fresh produce after shops and
consumer groups pointed out that old people would not understand the
new system. Fresh goods will still be able to be labelled in imperial
measures and shoppers will be able to use them to ask for what they
want. Retailers will then measure the goods out in the metric
equivalent."
I wonder what happened to Regina Dollar and the Consumer Protection
Council? ;-)
"Saturday 6 February 1999
Feet and inches get a 10-year reprieve
FEET and inches are to be kept in Britain for another 10 years -
because America has failed to adopt European Union standards.
The imperial measurements were due to disappear at the end of this
year when metrication replaced what Brussels calls the "inch-pound"
system across the EU. But industries facing multi-billion pound costs
to meet new metric-only labelling laws have won a breathing space
until 2009."
Chris
--
Metrication information: http://www.metric.org.uk/
UK legislation, EC Directives, Trading Standards links and more
