Footpath signs in the sleepy village of Moor Monkton, North Yorksire, now have footpath signs giving distances to two local destinations as '4 1/2 m' instead of the previous '7km'.

Shame that those lovely carved letters and numbers '7km' are now covered by hardened Flexon HX-20 and metal plates that will be difficult to dislodge. But then again, North Yorkshire County Council shouldn't have put them up in the first place and should have amended them when they had the chance to do so.

By contrast, the Council has done the decent thing in North Linconshire (south of the villages of South Ferriby and Barton-on-Humber), and slightly modified ARM's technique. Here, they have also used black-and-white plates to cover over their previous illegal metric distances, only they have used four cruciform screws to screw them tightly into the wood. They look quite good - done in metallic black-and-white, the distances are much more noticeable than the destinations which are carved out in wood. The changes have come about as a result of pressure from a local anti-metric campaigner. Examples can be seen around Horkstow and Saxby All Saints

If you abide by the law Tony, you would have put 4 1/2 miles rather than 4 1/2m. Like it or not, 'm' means metres.

Why isn't "mi" used for mile? Thats what they use in America

Tony - Is metric actually illegal on footpath signs? I thought there was freedom of choice for these type of signs.

Well if most choose imperial........

I must admit I don't know exactly what the legislation for various types of signs is in Britain, but assuming for non-transport signs, it is legal to use metric, isn't it a bit hypocritical for you guys to keep going on about freedom of choice, and then when someone chooses to use metric measurements, deny them that choice?

How exactly does this "freedom of choice" theory work? I don't remember ever being given the choice to use the measurements I learnt at school.

Andy wrote
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Why isn't "mi" used for mile? Thats what they use in America
>>

In 1981 the EU decided to use the units and symbols recomended by the BIPM (Internation Bureau for Weights and Measures) as the legal units throughout the EU. This had the big advantage that the units and symbols were already being used to a lesser or greater extend throughout the EU and that the symbols were the same regardless of the language being used. A certain degree of tidying up was required (eg Dutch markets could no longer use the word "pond", they had to use "500g" instead).

The British Prime Minister of the day threw a tantrum at the suggestion and threatened all and sundry with her handbag. AS a result, certain concessions were made to the British people. Amongst other things we were allowed to continue to use miles to measure road distances. At the same time, an EU-wide symbol for "miles" was instituted - the word "mile" (note - singular). It is worth noting that Dutch had the word "mijl" (plural "mijlen") for the English word "mile". No doubt, other countries had similar words.

If yo wish ot look at the formal text for the EU directive 80/181/EEC, visit www.mertic.org.uk for a link.

"Margaret Thatcher"

Those were the days [sigh]

Steveh: "Margaret Thatcher - Those were the days [sigh]"

Steveh, are you blind ?!?

Let me remind you: in ten years, Margaret Thatcher ruined the Welfare State, broke up Britain, destroyed trade union power, smashed 70 per cent of the state ownership of industry, sold one million council houses, privatised prisons, roads, and railways.
And you think that she was a good prime minister ?

Maybe you should read a bit more, you're too much focussed on her europhobic attitude.

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Tony - Is metric actually illegal on footpath signs? I thought there was freedom of choice for these type of signs

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Well if most choose imperial........
>>

Try asking the people of Moor Monkton first, it's their sign.

Conrad said this:
"Let me remind you: in ten years, Margaret Thatcher ruined the Welfare State, broke up Britain, destroyed trade union power, smashed 70 per cent of the state ownership of industry, sold one million council houses, privatised prisons, roads, and railways.
And you think that she was a good prime minister ? "

Now of course I can go on about a list of good things she did, like transfor the UK from what it was in 79 to what we take for granted today and stuff about strikes and wars but I won't! However I want to take your quote piece be piece:

"in ten years"
It was longer than that
"Margaret Thatcher ruined the Welfare State"
She streamlined and improved it - £ for £ new labour spend less than she did.

"broke up Britain"
Errr?

"destroyed trade union power"
Brought democracy to trade unions and brought about emplyment legsn that make unions less relevent.

"smashed 70 per cent of the state ownership of industry"

Big smile, big grin, fond memories and a realisation that this govt has not reversed those moves!

"sold one million council houses"
Excellent!

"privatised prisons"

Not in her reign, which is shameful

"roads"

I take it you mean contractors?

"and railways."

The only badly executed privatisation (under Major, wasn't it?). "Could do better" - that's what I say (take a look at the best railway system in the world - Japan)

"And you think that she was a good prime minister ? "

My only anguish is whether Churchill or Thatcher was the best prime minister ever - this plays on my mind greatly as both were supreme states-people. And that's from someone who's pretty much anti-state!!!

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"And you think that she was a good prime minister ? "
>>

If you stand back and look at her record with honesty, you will find that she did a lot of good for the country, but also caused a great deal of harm. If you arrange her achievements in chronological order, I think that you will find that by and large (though not always) her better actions were those that she did earlier in her premiership while the more harmful ones were later in her premiership.

The reason was quite simple - durign the earlier years she had considerable opposition within the cabinet. Any good ideas that she had were promoted while bad ones were slapped down. Over the years members of her cabinet retired, resigned, died etc. They were then replaced by here "yes-men" with the result that by 1990 there was nobody in cabinet who was willing to say "shut-up woman, this is a stupid idea!".

Steveh: "sold one million council houses" "Excellent!"

And what about the people who couldn't afford to buy the (council) house they were living in and got evicted ?

Conrad:
"And what about the people who couldn't afford to buy the (council) house they were living in and got evicted"

I am pretty sure you know that this cannot happen!
No-one got evicted for "not buying their house".

Buying the house was a purely financial matter.

The councils got the money from the sale of those houses and the good ones made a budget out of this to build new (council) homes.

Come on mate - do you personally know of anyone who had a council house and chose to buy it or not buy it?
I do.

"The reason was quite simple - durign the earlier years she had considerable opposition within the cabinet. Any good ideas that she had were promoted while bad ones were slapped down"

Not the case - she risked 4 million unemployed to sort the economy out. She made her most radical attacks on union "power" in the earlier years - remember "the lady's not for turning"? The earlier years were a chemotherapy to get things working again - ie unpopular, painful, near fatal medicine but recongised as being "needed" if we ever had a hope of going from borrowing from the IMF to being the 4th largest economy.

Most people have a "tabloid recollection" from that era - which is very bad. People should look at our current quality of life, compare it to Heath/Wilson's day and work out how we got here.

It's just a shame that a bunch of cowards voted her out and not the people - what a travesty on "democracy"!

See? Now you've got me started!!

Although an IDS supporter - I actually think Portillo could be a formidable leader now.

(nice switch of conversation there SteveH!)

(why thank you SteveH)

--err, I think I've finally been affected by those "conversations" with matahari/anonymous!

With regard to the issue of metrication the Thatcher government did a great deal of harm to Britains interests.

She sewed the seeds of a protracted period of changeover where the British people could not adjust properly.

She wasn't the only sinner but her handling of it made things decidedly worse.

BTW: with regard to the early years of her popularity don't forget the Faulklands factor.

Metre Man: "BTW: with regard to the early years of her popularity don't forget the Faulklands factor."

It's commonly known that just before the Falklands War began Mrs Thatcher's popularity was at an all-time low.

You're talking pre-83 election - she'd only been in for a small amount of time.
Hatred of *all* politicians was rife at that point - the country was only just BEGINNING to get out of that state.

BTW - There was also the "Michael Foot" effect.

And then there was the Liberals, errr, the SDP err the SLD errr (etc etc).

Anyone remember that point when the SDP was briefly the most popular party in the UK?

Headed by David Owen?

Who is now an arch-eurosceptic?

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You're talking pre-83 election - she'd only been in for a small amount of time.
Hatred of *all* politicians was rife at that point - the country was only just BEGINNING to get out of that state.
>>

Doubling of VAT and a sharp rise in unemployment didn't help much either.

Heath "harmonised" VAT, and I've already mentioned high unemployment.

BTW the EU want us to slap VAT on books and kids clothes - just thought I ought to drop that one in, after all, Woolworths being forced to charge VAT on a t-shirt should help the Germans to sell a few more bratwursts!