British plans to revive the traditional system of imperial measurements, including pounds and ounces, are “complete and utter nonsense” at an intensely difficult time for industry, a leading retail boss has said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has proposed changing the law on weights and other measurements in what it says will be a post-Brexit benefit to give companies greater choice over the way they sell their products.
However, the move has angered businesses that are grappling with soaring costs and provoked criticism that the government would rather trade in nostalgia than find solutions to the modern-day problems that are threatening living standards for millions.
“I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life,” Stuart Rose, a veteran retail executive and the chairman of supermarket Asda, told Times Radio. “We have got serious problems in the world and we’re now saying let’s go backwards?”
“It’s complete and utter nonsense,” he added.
A consultation will consider whether vegetables should be sold in pounds only, or in pounds with a less prominent metric equivalent, although the government says businesses will not be forced to do so, meaning there will be no additional costs.
“While we think of our fruit and veg by the pound, the legacy of EU rules means we legally have to sell them by the kilo,” British Undersecretary for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Paul Scully said.
Britain is reviewing thousands of rules after it left the EU in 2020.
While the bloc normally requires members to use the metric system, it allowed Britain, while a member, to use some imperial units alongside metric units.
Speed limits are set in miles per hour, and milk and beer are sold in pints, but most other products such as sugar are sold in grams and kilograms.
Inflation reached a 40-year peak of 9 percent in April and is projected to rise further, while government forecasts last month showed living standards were set to see their biggest fall since records began in the late 1950s.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
Ukrainian drone attacks overnight on several Russian power and energy facilities forced capacity reduction at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and set a fuel export terminal in Ust-Luga on fire, Russian officials said yesterday. A drone attack on the Kursk nuclear plant, not far from the border with Ukraine, damaged an auxiliary transformer and led to 50 percent reduction in the operating capacity at unit three of the plant, the plant’s press service said. There were no injuries and a fire sparked by the attack was promptly extinguished, the plant said. Radiation levels at the site and in the surrounding
‘DELIBERATE PROVOCATION’: Pyongyang said that Seoul had used a machine gun to fire at North Korean troops who were working to permanently seal the southern border South Korea fired warning shots at North Korean soldiers that briefly crossed the heavily fortified border earlier this week, Seoul said yesterday after Pyongyang accused it of risking “uncontrollable” tensions. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has sought warmer ties with the nuclear-armed North and vowed to build “military trust,” but Pyongyang has said it has no interest in improving relations with Seoul. Seoul’s military said several North Korean soldiers crossed the border on Tuesday while working in the heavily mined demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. The incursion prompted “our military to fire warning shots,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff
RSS