Category Archives: General

DfT guilty of making unfounded claims

Yesterday, the National Audit Office (NAO) criticised the UK Department for Transport (DfT) for its unfounded claims about the benefits of the proposed high speed rail project HS2. In this article, Ronnie Cohen identifies another unfounded claim by the DfT … Continue reading

Posted in General, Myths, Road signs, Transport | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

A statement from UKIP

UKIP’s recent electoral successes have resulted, quite rightly, in increased scrutiny of its policies. Here, we take a look at a recent statement by the Party’s Trade spokesman on the subject of measurement units.

Posted in Consumer affairs, General, History, Myths | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Familiar with imperial? Do you know that…?

Miles, yards, feet and inches, pints, pounds and stones. Yes, fifty years after the UK embarked on the metric transition, we still need to be familiar with some of those old units.  In this article, Ronnie Cohen looks at some … Continue reading

Posted in Consumer affairs, Education, General, History, Law, Science | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Grand National’s unhelpful measurements

The race has been run. Pictures and commentary have been broadcast around the world, and millions will have formed an impression of Britain in 2013. Ronnie Cohen asks if more could have been made of this opportunity to publicise UK … Continue reading

Posted in General, Sport, Views from abroad | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Why is it important to weigh ourselves in kg?

The measurement mess in Britain is in itself reason enough for the discontinued use of stones and pounds for personal body mass (commonly weight), but is there a case for using kilograms that goes beyond this? This article proposes that … Continue reading

Posted in General, Health | Tagged , , | 24 Comments

The 1895 Select Committee on weights and measures

This article looks back to the findings and recommendations of the 1895 Parliamentary Select Committee on weights and measures.

Posted in Education, General, History, Law, Transport | Tagged , , , , , , | 26 Comments

How US labelling requirements undermine honest labelling in the UK

On EU product labels, metric units are mandatory whereas non-metric units are optional. On US product labels, both metric and US customary (USC) units are mandatory for most products. So a company that wants to sell a product in the EU … Continue reading

Posted in Consumer affairs, General | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Will EU-US trade agreement bring in metric-only labelling in the US?

A key point of President Obama’s State of the Union address on 13 February was the proposed EU-US trade agreement, which has been under preliminary discussion for the past year. (See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/13/state-of-the-union-free-trade-europe).  As this agreement is supposed to remove regulatory … Continue reading

Posted in Consumer affairs, General, Law, Views from abroad | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

Myths, misinformation and fallacies (1) – Are imperial units “natural”?

The claim is often made by last-ditch defenders of miles, feet, pints and acres that “Imperial units are natural whereas metric units are artificial”.   In the first of an occasional series of articles on “myths, misinformation and fallacies” used by … Continue reading

Posted in General, Myths, Technical | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments