to think that politicians who are keen for a return to Imperial measurements should be asked to do calculations with them

[cakeorwine]

I know my weight in stones and pounds. And in Kg
My height in feet and inches. And metres / cm

I can visualise a mile - but a 1000 yards - not really.

But when it comes to calculations, I would struggle with Imperial but it's easy with metric

10 stones 5 pound 7 oz divided by 7

or 52 kg divided by 7 - I could estimate that pretty confidently and it wouldn't take too much time to calculate it.

3 lb 5 ounces at £1.23 a pound or 4.2 kg at £1.23 a kg?
And what is less than an ounce - you can easily go more precise with metric but with Imperial?

I know that 'in the old days' people got used to these calculations. But we've moved on.

If you want to display units in price per pounds or per gallon / fluid ounce, go ahead . But keep Metric.

I think politicians who are keen to do Imperial should be asked to do some percentages, division and multiplication with such units. And then they should be asked if it's worth it

Less than an ounce?

Grain or drachm.

Or half, quarter etc.

It's pandering to a minority of silly old farts. It's Boris doing his 'look over here, not over there' distraction thing. I'm in my 60s and I can't believe he would do such a stupid thing. As someone who had to learn and use both metric and imperial at primary school, I know first hand metric is the best way!

I prefer imperial but that’s just because I grew up using it (I’m under 35, so not an “old fart” I don’t think) but it’s not something I’d die on a hill about either way.

Out of all the problems facing britain and the world today, talk of re introducing imperial units is literally the least important thing imaginable as well as being a retrograde step.
i feel the tories are seriously lacking in any kind of vision if they think this is important. i agree with the comment above that its only of interest to a small minority of old farts

I haven't a clue what my weight is in kg, my scales are set to stone and pounds. Height I measure in feet and inches. When I had my weight and height checked at the hospital they had a conversion chart for kg to stones and metres to feet.

I think most places are happy to use a combination of both measurements. Estate agents tend to measure room sizes in metres but put it in feet as well.

God, this gets better all the time. Imperial hahahahah

Another dead cat to distract from the incompetence and law breaking...

Ridiculous. Let's make our kids even more confused

I can imagine one measurement the Prime Minister probably has done in inches.

I'm old enough to have used both but largely think in metric now. Metric is completely logical whereas Imperial is not. I cannot believe anyone wants to go back to this so I feel it's just another pathetic distraction. Do they really think we all want to live in the past ?

I'm still waiting to hear when the extra £350 million a week for the NHS is starting......

All these Brexit promises. And we get imperial measurements. Like imperial really matters.

What a load of shite.

most of those in government have never had to calculate food value for money... they don't give a shit about those of us who have to.

Bloody ridiculous idea. Although we're not fully metric, still buy a pint of beer or milk etc, still weigh ourselves in stone and men lie about their penis size in inches.

I agree. I want to see worked examples on the telly when they reintroduce them.

This is totally stupid. Imperial measurements make no sense. It’s pandering to ridiculous old people

It’s just another dead cat. BJ is just trying to distract attention from party gate and the cost of living crisis.

Johnson focused on pints of champagne for parties.

My cat couldn't care less whether grams or ounces, she'd just like her normal catfood back - no longer available in the UK post brexit😣

You are under 35 and grew up with it? In the UK?

Ok, you want to buy two gills of olive oil. It’s £14.35 a gallon. How much is it, without looking it up?

DM is in her 70s, and her parents ran a grocers (back when everything was sold loose by weight/volume). She says it was a nightmare and wouldn’t go back, so god knows why people who have never tried to actually use it want to.

Dead cat distraction by Boris the champagne politician…

Even the old people don’t want this, people have got used to metric.

I can remember shopping and cooking in imperial. I struggled a bit with the changeover but was fine within a few months. I’d hate to go back.

Politicians who vocalise about the imperial system don’t generally believe in reintroducing it

Its a soundbite for perceived parts of the electorate, continution of blaming pesky EU regulations (when we were a key part of the EU and setting the regulations)

Despite what they said any goods could be sold in both metric and imperial measurements. But also must be compliant with the appropriate weights and measures standards.

Either this is nothing and allows traders to display both imperial and metric, or if they change the required standards so that a trader can choose to sell in either imperial or metric, then trading standards inspectors will then need two sets of regularly calibrated reference weights & measures

Absolutely correct.

I'm 64 next week, grew up with Imperial and dread to think of the response of teachers to the notion that they'd now have to learn and teach imperial as well as metric.

Actually, given that Michael Gove crowbarred (for no apparent reason) Roman numerals into the primary curriculum, I'm only surprised he didn't insist on Imperial at the same time.

This

Properly worked questions.
Work out the average weight of a lot of people. With a suitable degree of precision.

Complex calculations.

Kay Burley gave some minister 3 relatively easy calculations to do on sky news this morning (I missed it but DM filled me in). He got them all wrong.