And the grievance had remained, even though the European Union relented on the issue. In 2007, in fact, the EU had told the UK it could keep using imperial measures wherever it liked. As Günter Verheugen, EU industry commissioner, said at the time: ‘I want to bring to an end a bitter, bitter battle that has lasted for decades and which in my view is completely pointless.’8 Today the UK is almost entirely metric, but retains dual units on some food packaging and imperial measures in areas of life too culturally embedded to suffer change. There are still miles, yards, and feet on road signs;
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