Toby on Tuesday

'Weighed, Measured, And Found Wanting'

In January 2000, Council Directive 80/181/EEC passed into English law by statutory instrument without a debate in Parliament.   This made it a criminal offence to use the old Imperial system of weights and measures, imposing instead the immediate use of the Continental metric system.    The Brussels’ Commission’s argument was that the use of the Imperial system gave British exporters an unfair advantage in trading with the United States where the traditional system was also used.   Instantly, a great part of Britain’s economy was criminalised and faced prosecution.   One of the first to be brought to trial was Steve Thoburn, a market trader in Sunderland.   In February 2000, Trading Standards officers caught him selling bananas by the pound, his scales were seized, he was prosecuted for a criminal offence and found guilty of being in breach of Council Directive 80/181/EEC.   He and Neil Herron, a veteran campaigner against heavy-handed and incompetent bureaucracy, appealed, taking the case as far as the European Court of Human Rights, where the appeal was inevitably rejected.   The strain proved too much for Steve Thoburn and in March 2004, at the age of 39, he died of a heart attack with a criminal record.   At the time, Neil Herron declared, “This man had the courage to stand up and be counted and it was a pleasure to know him.   He was an ordinary person’s hero – an extraordinary ordinary person.”   While Steve Thoburn’s prosecution was underway, Tony Blair was busy taking Britain into the Iraq War but, despite Sir John Chilcot’s report, he can be confident that there will be no criminal record for him.   If you need an allegory for the sheer awfulness of the way our country has been run over the past generation, you need look no further than the contrasting fates of Tony Blair and Steve Thoburn. 

In 2003, Theresa May was Shadow Transport Secretary.  She had just achieved fame of a sort when she described the Conservative grassroots as “The Nasty Party”, which was an unusual way to make friends and influence people.   And this was the only time when I have had the doubtful pleasure of meeting her.   She would not remember the occasion at a Northern business conference in York, but I could never forget.  I asked her why it had been necessary to criminalise the use of pounds and ounces, and if it was necessary wouldn’t a civil rather than a criminal prosecution be more appropriate?   In her peremptory and charmless way, she turned to me and declared, “You (i.e. the business community) asked for it and anyway it’s a condition of our membership of the European Union!”   No doubt she thought the question an irritant and Steve Thoburn’s criminal record to be entirely deserved.   Here was Ted Heath in a dress, I thought, and nothing has happened since then to make me question that view.   And as she is now our next Prime Minister, anyone who thinks that she can be relied on to enact last month’s Referendum decision will definitely be disappointed.

The cases of the Metric Martyrs, as Steve Thoburn and others like him are known, continue to stain our legal system.   There have been so many breaches that prosecutions are rarely brought now, but when we ask for a pound of apples we are still inciting the shopkeeper or market trader to commit a criminal offence.   The brave Neil Herron continues with his campaign, saying that the Brexit vote finally gives us the opportunity to “strike down the repugnant piece of EU legislation.”   And here we come back to the immunity from prosecution that Tony Blair has always enjoyed.   In May 2000, three months after Steve Thoburn was criminally charged, Cherie Blair gave birth to young Leo Blair.   At the time, Downing Street announced that the baby’s weight was 6lb and 12 oz.   Insodoing Downing Street and the Blairs were likewise committing a criminal offence, as under the EU Directive the baby’s weight should have been given as 3.06kg.   But as we have all learned, there’s one law for the Blairs and one for the rest of us.   And as for Theresa May, she would probably say, “Don’t be so silly, if I decide something is a criminal offence or not, that should be quite good enough for you – and all those nasty people like you!”

Until next Tuesday!
Toby