NO POUNDS, NO JUSTICE:

The final victory is not yet won: No one will be more pleased at the news that there may be no more prosecutions for selling goods in pounds and ounces than all those readers whose support over the past eight years has made the campaign to end the absurdity of the compulsory metrication laws possible. (Christopher Booker, 18 Oct 2008, Daily Telegraph)

The announcement by business minister John Denham that local authorities are to be instructed never again to charge small traders with the criminal offence of selling in traditional British weights and measures seems like a remarkable victory for the tireless campaign led by Neil Herron of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund.

It was Mr Herron who, in June 2000, was the first to leap into the fray when, for selling 'a pound of bananas', his fellow Sunderland market trader Steve Thoburn became the first person in Britain to face prosecution under new regulations, implementing two EU directives, making it an offence to sell except in metric measures.

When four other traders soon fell similarly foul of the new law, it was Mr Herron who set up the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund to provide them with proper legal support for a case which went right up to the Court of Appeal, And, as he is first to acknowledge, without the generosity of those Sunday Telegraph readers who over the years have contributed more than £100,000, his brilliantly orchestrated campaign could never have got off the ground.

But before we cheer too loudly at this latest news, we must recall that Mr Denham is only proposing to give new 'guidance' to local councils, on an issue long an embarrassment to the Government because it arouses such public passion.

The laws under which the original 'metric martyrs' were found guilty are still on the statute book...