For the attention of The News Editor
PRESS RELEASE
21 December 1997
IS BRITAIN REALLY GOING METRIC?
KEY FINDINGS OF INDEPENDENT CAPIBUS RESEARCH
Americans are told that Britain has gone metric. This is done to persuade them that the USA should go metric too. What is not said is that this is deeply unpopular in Britain.
An overwhelming majority of the British public (74%) finds feet and inches, pints and pounds, to be more convenient for everyday purposes than their metric equivalents.
· The preference for customary units is stronger than that for metric across all age groups, including the metric-educated 15-24s, and across all regions of the country.
· Women are significantly more likely to prefer customary measures than men. 82% say they find the Imperial system more convenient for everyday purposes.
· Only a tiny minority - 7% - are in favour of the current move towards printing the packaging for goods, and the ingredients listed in recipes, solely in metric measurements.
Three times as many -21%- prefer labelling in Imperial, pound/foot system, measures only.
· Ten times as many - 70% - would prefer a system of dual labelling, which would allow the consumer to choose the system which suited him or her the best.
The research: a survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,000 British adults aged 15+.
The survey was carried out by Research Services Ltd, CAPIBUS Division, on behalf of the Board Planning Director, Abbot Mead Vickers. BBDO. The findings have been passed to the British Weights and Measures Association.
For further information CONTACT:
Mr Vivian Linacre, BWMA Director (tel. & FAX: 011 44 31 556 6080)
Press release distributed by David Delaney, BWMA Hon Public Relations Officer, Mortimers Cross Mill, Leominster, HR6 9PE, (Tel: 011 44 568 708 820, FAX 011 44 568 708 765, e-mail dtdelaney@compuserve.com).
BACKGROUND INFORMATION.
The British Weights and Measures Association is grateful to Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO for passing on the results of the independent survey by Research Services Ltd.
This research has been designed to test the received wisdom. It has two aims:
· To see which system of measurements people in Britain - both young and old - really feel most comfortable with.
· To see whether they actually want all the goods they buy, and all the instructions and articles and recipes they read, to be wholly metric.
The BWMA was founded in 1860 with the objective of preserving our traditional system of measures. The European Union has passed directives which call for the metric system to be used throughout Europe. The UK government is using the criminal law to enforce the metric system. The EU did not intend the law to be used in this way. The BWMA wants British citizens to retain a choice of measurement systems, as they have for over a hundred years, and it wants the criminal law to be removed from metrification.
The rigid imposition of the metric system has deprived most citizens of any sense of value. Retailers, who have been able to manipulate prices and quantities against the consumer's interest, have exploited this situation.
Why is it that boy-racer drivers in their early twenties will tell you how many 'miles per gallon' their custom Fords will do, when so few of them will ever have bought petrol in anything but litres? Why is it that children, when you ask how tall they are, or how much they weigh, will give you the answer in feet and inches and pounds, when all they have ever learned at school is metres and kilograms? Why do so many cooks still talk about 'half a pound of butter', when it has been sold, for years, in 250g and 500g blocks?
The received wisdom has it that people do these things because we are still in a transitional stage. People - and particularly young people - are mainly metric nowadays, the received wisdom says, but use the 'old' system, where they have to, in a dwindling number of circumstances. But things are changing: already, most packaged goods come in metric sizes, and more and more manufacturers and retailers are dropping the 'supplementary' Imperial equivalents from their packs.
More and more recipes in books and magazines are printed in metric units only. In a few years, some of the last bastions of the 'old' system street markets and shops selling loose goods - will be required to make the switch, or risk heavy fines or imprisonment.
This is felt to be what people want, and to be in the public interest. So-called consumer organisations are in favour of the metric system. They do not want to represent what consumers really want.
Copies of the full results of the research are available from the BWMA, 45 Montgomery Street, Edinburgh EH7 5JX.
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