WESTMINSTER RAUL
Page 7
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IS OUR nice, civilised Secretary of State for Transport becoming a kilometre convert?
Up to now he has seemed decidedly cool every time the abolition of the mile was mentioned, hut, try as they might. MPs could not get him to admit last week that kilometres should and would stop at Calaig.
Not even the offer of a pint if he stuck to miles moved him.
Mr Rodgers found the going all uphill. And. as he was obviously underpowered, the result . was inevitable. He stalled.
"We have an obligation" he explained earnestly. To whom he did not bother to say.
To the British people? It seemed not.
To Europe? "It is perfectly clear that we have no direct obligation under EEC regula dons to change from miles to kilometres".
Could it, then, be that this debt of honour was owed to whoever made the decision to go metric way back in 1968?
Most people do not remember who came to the conclusion that tens were in. but obviously such a fundamental change in our way of calculating must have had the blessing of the man at the top, who happened to be one Harold Wilson.
So it might be that Mr Rodgers is simply being loyal to his former leader and the man who promoted him from the back benches.
But it was 1978 not 1968 which concerned his interrogators.
"Listen to the authentic voice of the British people" demanded Labour's Roy Hughes. Mr Rodgers promised to do so, but pointed out that it was not always easy to know what that was.
He reminded the greying heads around him that there was a younger generation a great deal more relaxed about the question of metrication and kilometres.
Mr Rodgers obviously thought it impolitic to take up the offer of a pint from Patrick Cormack, a Tory, and was equally unforthcoming when a man on his own side, Robin Cook, recalling that exports were allimportant when the metric decision was taken, asked for a list of our exports which had to be measured in miles or kilometres.
Norman Fowler, with no cares of office — for the moment at least — was able to be much more positive.
"Overwhelmingly the public do not want such a change," he declared with absolute confidence.
Now there's a thought. Perhaps the Tories should forget about such sensitive issues as immigration and law and order, and concentrate on road distances.
And if they would pledge themselves to keep tyre pressure in lbs per square inch they would sweep the board.