Oddly, there’s no bias here
It was meant to be one of the sure-fire wins for Brexit, but plans to bring back imperial measurements face criticism over claims of a biased government review.
Ministers were keen to launch a review to revive imperial measurements – such as pounds and ounces – and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), now overseen by Jacob Rees-Mogg, conducted a government consultation over the summer. However, the questions appeared to have something missing.
The survey asked consumers: “If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items: i) in imperial units ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent.”
No other option was given.
Officials said respondents who wanted to keep the current metric system could send in an email to the department or give their views in one of the text boxes in the survey.
The BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less last week highlighted concerns about the survey and criticism of it on social media.
One Twitter user commented: “This survey is being punted out by BEIS. It is so slanted that the words nearly slide off the page.”
Because of course the current system is option ii) anyway.