Clearly metricating a country and destroying its contagiously ill are hardly analogous acts in "the national interest". And I repeat that if a sovereign government has the constitutional right and authority to fix the weights and measures of the country that it governs and then decides to metricate that country in its national interest, then it should see its decision through and fully implement it. Yes, metrication is unpopular with many Britons, but any government worthy of the name cannot allow itself to be deflected from implementing a decision, taken on the very best technical and scientific advice in the country, because of the objections from a few but vocal anti-metric elements within the UK. A government is elected to govern, and if it vacillates over a decision that it has made in the national interest because some loudly object, then it is too weak and indecisive to deserve the mandate to govern. Successive British governments have shown themselves to be just that over metrication.
How would it have affected Britain and the British people if over the last 40 years, these same governments had been as weak and indecisive on other, more important issues ranging from the economy to the warring strife in Northern Ireland? It is the fact that the metrication of Britain was and is not seen as any great political priority, and only as a minor and unpopular issue, that its full implementation has been delayed and has dragged on and on. Government indifference being added to and reinforced by its perceived unpopularity.
Sorry, but when you're elected to govern you sometimes have to make unpopular and difficult decisions even on the more minor issues. If you can't then you haven't got the real will to lead and govern, but only to be popular. And unfortunately over the last 40 years, national politics in the various countries of the Western world, and especially in English-speaking countries for some reason, have too much degenerated into popularity contests for gutless, self-serving politicians whose only political ambition is not serving their countries' national interest but getting themselves re-elected so that they can continue to serve themselves.
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