Brussels spouts off again!
09/07/2010

When, a couple of years ago, Hackney Council prosecuted an East End stallholder for selling fruit and veg by the pound – and confiscated her scales – you’d have thought that metric militancy had been pushed to its absurd limits.

But no, in the paper this week I read that Brussels is poised to plumb the depths of bureaucratic idiocy by forbidding the sale of food and retail goods by number – such as a dozen eggs or a pack of six bread rolls. I checked the date at the top of the paper and, no, it wasn’t April 1st, so it seems the days of shopping sensibly for your breakfast are numbered – or should that be not numbered?

Just recently, in a second hand bookshop, I came across an eccentric proprietor who was selling old paperback books by weight in brass scales he kept on his counter.  He was doing it, presumably, for a bit of a wheeze.  But if Brussels gets its way, he might soon have to sell all of his stock that way.

And what about shoe shops?  Will be still be allowed to buy them by the pair?  Or will we have to purchase them by the kilo, and hope that we don’t end up with an odd number?  Restaurant bookings could be problematic too.  “No, I’m sorry Monsieur; we cannot take bookings by the number of persons.  But perhaps you could give us the exact weight of your party?”

Crazy?  Yes – but not half so daft as the mad mandarins of the EU.  Fortunately, there is a lone voice of sanity crying out in the wilderness.  Our environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, God bless her, says Brussels’ proposals go against common sense, and she will be taking the matter up with Parliament.  Now there’s a rare thing – a politician championing common sense.  Let’s just hope they don’t nobble her by making her an EMP.