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UK Metric Association
The UK Metric Association, or UKMA, is an advocacy group in the United Kingdom that argues for completion of metrication in the United Kingdom and advocates the use of the metric system among the general public in the UK. History UKMA was founded by Chris Keenan in 1999 and formally associated in 2002 as an independent, non-party political, single-issue organisation. Later, an e-mail forum was started for supporters of metrication. In 2005, a website called ThinkMetric to help and encourage the general public to think in metric units was launched. In 2006, a blog called MetricViews was launched. The current chair of UKMA is Peter Burke, and the secretary is Ronnie Cohen. its patrons are Gavin Esler, Jim Al-Khalili, Lord Kinnock and Lord Taverne. Campaigns In July 2004, UKMA published its report, "A Very British Mess", as part of its campaign to end the simultaneous use of imperial and metric measurements and for the Government to complete the switch to metric units. In the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advocacy Group
Advocacy groups, also known as lobby groups, interest groups, special interest groups, pressure groups, or public associations, use various forms of advocacy or lobbying to influence public opinion and ultimately public policy. They play an important role in the development of political and social systems. Motives for action may be based on Politics, political, Economy, economic, religious, morality, moral, commerce, commercial or common good-based positions. Groups Methods used by advocacy groups, use varied methods to try to achieve their aims, including lobbying, media campaigns, consciousness raising, awareness raising publicity stunts, Opinion poll, polls, research, and policy briefings. Some groups are supported or backed by powerful business or political interests and exert considerable influence on the political process, while others have few or no such resources. Some have developed into important social, and political institutions or social movements. Some powerful advo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chancellor Of The Exchequer
The chancellor of the exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and the head of HM Treasury, His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the chancellor is a high-ranking member of the British Cabinet. Responsible for all economic and financial matters, the role is equivalent to that of a finance minister in other countries. The chancellor is now always second lord of the Treasury as one of at least six Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, lords commissioners of the Treasury, responsible for executing the office of the Treasurer of the Exchequer the others are the prime minister and Commons government whips. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was common for the prime minister also to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer if he sat in the Commons; the last Chancellor who was simultaneously prime minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer was Stanley Baldwin in 1923. Formerl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advocacy Groups In The United Kingdom
Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to influence public policy, laws and budgets by using facts, their relationships, the media, and messaging to educate government officials and the public. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes, including media campaigns, public speaking, commissioning and publishing research. Lobbying (often by lobby groups) is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on a specific issue or specific piece of legislation. Research has started to address how advocacy groups in the United States and Canada are using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. Forms There are several forms of advocacy, each representing a different approach in a way to initiate changes in the society. One of the most popular forms is social jus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metrication In The United Kingdom
Metrication is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. The United Kingdom, through voluntary and mandated laws, has metricated most of government, industry, commerce, and scientific research to the metric system; however, the previous measurement system (Imperial units) is still used in society. Imperial units as of 2024 remain mandated by law to still be used without metric units for speed and distance road signs, and the sizes of cider and beer sold by the glass, returnable milk containers and precious metals, and in some areas both measurement systems are mandated by law. Due to metrication many Imperial units have been phased out. However, the national curriculum requires metric units and imperial units that still remain in common usage to be taught in state schools. As such, the public is familiar with both metric and Imperial units, and may interchange measurements in conversation, for example: distance and body measurements. Adopting the metri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
US Metric Association
The US Metric Association (USMA), based in Windsor, Colorado, is a non-profit organization that advocates for total conversion of the United States to the International System of Units (SI). Founded on 27 December 1916 at Columbia University in New York City, it was originally called the American Metric Association. The USMA publishes a bi-monthly newsletter for its members on the state of the metric system in the United States called '' Metric Today''. Background The Metric Act of 1866 declared the metric system to be "lawful throughout the United States of America" and in all business dealings and court proceedings, in essence allowing metric units to be used in an official capacity throughout America. At an international commercial congress, the Treaty of the Meter, also known as the Metre Convention (''Convention du Mètre'') of 1875, was signed by 17 countries, including the US, making the metric system the international system of weights and measures. Note that this wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metrication
Metrication or metrification is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. All over the world, countries have transitioned from local and traditional Unit of measurement, units of measurement to the metric system. This process began in French Revolution, France during the 1790s, and has persistently advanced over two centuries, accumulating into 95% of the world officially only using the International System of Units, modern metric system. Nonetheless, this also highlights that certain countries and sectors are either still transitioning or have chosen not to fully adopt the metric system. Overview The process of metrication is typically initiated and overseen by a country's government, generally motivated by the necessity of establishing a uniform measurement system for effective international cooperation in fields like trade and science. Governments achieve metrication through either mandatory changes to existing units within a specified timeframe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metric Martyrs
The Metric Martyrs was a British advocacy group who campaigned for the freedom to choose what units of measurement are used by traders. The group believed that vendors should have the freedom to mark their goods with imperial weights and measurements alone. This opposes the current legal position that imperial units may be used so long as metric units are also displayed. The advocacy group was formed by individuals who had been accused of offences related to selling loose produce using imperial measures, including not displaying metric signage, and for using unstamped weighing machines (which had had their stamps removed by the authorities). Newspapers dubbed the group the "metric martyrs" after Chris Howell, then weights and measures spokesman for the Institute of Trading Standards Administration (today the Trading Standards Institute), said that they could martyr themselves if they wanted to. Legal cases In 2001 Steve Thoburn, a greengrocer in Sunderland, the main defendant in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Weights And Measures Association
The spread of metrication around the world in the last two centuries has been met with both support and opposition. Metrication The United States of America officially accepted the Metric System in 1878 but United States customary units remain ubiquitous outside the science and technology sector. The metric system has been largely adopted in Canada and Ireland, and partially adopted in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, without having fully displaced imperial units from all areas of life. In other Anglophone countries such as Australia, Singapore and New Zealand, imperial units have been formally deprecated and are no longer officially sanctioned for use. Technical arguments Natural evolution and human scale One argument used by opponents of the metric system is that traditional systems of measurement were developed organically from actual use. Early measures were human in scale, intuitive, and imprecise, as illustrated by still-current expressions such as ''a stone's throw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metrication Board
The Metrication Board was a non-departmental public body that existed in the United Kingdom to promote and co-ordinate Metrication in the UK, metrication within the country. It was set up in 1969, four years after the metrication programme was announced, and wound down in 1981. Prelude to metrication The question of whether or not to convert British trade and industry to SI, metric was the subject of a UK Government White Paper in 1951, itself the result of the Hodgson Committee Report of 1949 which unanimously recommended compulsory metrication and currency decimalisation within ten years. The report said "The real problem facing Great Britain is not whether to adhere either to the Imperial or to the metric system, but to maintain two legal systems or to abolish the Imperial." The report also recommended that any change should be done in concert with the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth (former Empire) and the US, that the UK adopt a decimal currency and that the UK and US ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metrication In The United Kingdom
Metrication is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. The United Kingdom, through voluntary and mandated laws, has metricated most of government, industry, commerce, and scientific research to the metric system; however, the previous measurement system (Imperial units) is still used in society. Imperial units as of 2024 remain mandated by law to still be used without metric units for speed and distance road signs, and the sizes of cider and beer sold by the glass, returnable milk containers and precious metals, and in some areas both measurement systems are mandated by law. Due to metrication many Imperial units have been phased out. However, the national curriculum requires metric units and imperial units that still remain in common usage to be taught in state schools. As such, the public is familiar with both metric and Imperial units, and may interchange measurements in conversation, for example: distance and body measurements. Adopting the metri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Howe
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, (20 December 1926 – 9 October 2015), known from 1970 to 1992 as Sir Geoffrey Howe, was a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1990. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of chancellor of the Exchequer, foreign secretary, and finally leader of the House of Commons, deputy prime minister and Lord President of the Council. His resignation on 1 November 1990 is widely considered to have precipitated the leadership challenge that led to Thatcher's resignation three weeks later. Born in Port Talbot, Wales, Howe was educated at Bridgend Preparatory School, Abberley Hall School, Winchester College, and – after serving in the army as a lieutenant – Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read law. He was called to the bar in 1952 and practised in Wales, after whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Taverne
Dick Taverne, Baron Taverne, (born 18 October 1928) is a British politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Lincoln from 1962 to 1974. A member of the Liberal Democrats, he was a Labour MP until his deselection in 1972, following which he resigned his seat and won the subsequent by-election in 1973 as a Democratic Labour candidate. Taverne's 1973 victory in Lincoln was short-lived; despite retaining his seat at the February 1974 general election, Labour regained the seat at the October 1974 general election, by the future cabinet minister Margaret Beckett. However, his success opened the possibility of a realignment on the left of British politics, which took shape in 1981 as the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which Taverne joined. He later joined the Liberal Democrats when the SDP merged with the Liberal Party. He sat as a Liberal Democrat life peer in the House of Lords from 1996 until 2025. Career Educated at Charterhouse School, and then ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
