WEIGHTY matters were on the mind of Geoffrey Cox, Conservative spokesman for West Devon and Torridge, when he visited Tavistock's pannier market last Saturday.
Mr Cox met traders at the start of a national campaign to end the criminalization of thousands of people who want to go on serving their customers in pounds and ounces rather than metric weights and measures.
Together with Dick Eberlie, leader of the Conservative group on West Devon Borough Council, he talked to stallholders about the resentment at the hundreds of pounds in conversion costs and the unnecessary confusion caused by the measure.
Mr Cox said: 'I am launching this campaign to help bring home to the Government the strength of feeling of ordinary people about being made criminals because they want to go on having the freedom to use the weights and measures that are part of our cultural heritage.
'Neither this government nor the Liberal Democrats will stand up to the constant encroachment of European Union legislation on our traditions and — if there is still English milk to deliver — it will not be long before they go on to outlaw the pint of milk on our doorstep or the pint of beer in the local pub.'
Mr Cox also visited traders in Hatherleigh and met Bruce Robertson, of Trago Mills, chairman of the British Weights and Measures Association, for a working lunch to discuss the strategy of the local and national campaign.