Is it time we switched to driving on the right?

Brexit is a great chance to restore imperial measures, but uniformity on roads would be safer

It is suggested that the sad death of Harry Dunn, for which the American Mrs Anne Sacoolas is sought, was related to her driving on the right. There can be few people, driving in foreign countries, who have not made the mistake of doing so on the wrong side of the road once or twice. I certainly have. It is an ever‑present danger.

As a fervent believer in imperial measurements, I see Brexit as a great opportunity to restore them. In the age of instant computer recalibration, there is no serious economic difficulty – as there used to be in the past – about converting measurements.

It is not sensible to revert to local measurements for international industrial, medical or legal purposes. But there is no reason why we should not be taught in school, and use in life, miles and yards, inches and feet, gallons and pints (I bet petrol prices would be forced down if we could see the enormous cost of a gallon), pounds and ounces. Let diversity reign.

In the case of driving, however, there does seem to be a case for uniformity. The difference literally kills people, in some numbers, I should guess, every year. It must injure many more. Would it really destroy a British birthright if we were to switch to driving on the right?

It is true that Britain is not alone in driving on the left. With Ireland, Cyprus, Malta, Japan and mighty India, we are well over a billion strong. So if we can think up ways of persuading the world that the left is really the better side, good.

So far as I know, however, there is no better side, so probably it is we who should give in and – to use a piece of BBC political phraseology – “lurch to the right”.

 I do love it when people live up to caricatures. On Sunday, BBC Radio 4’s religious programme

Sunday was confronted with the canonisation of John Henry Newman, the first British saint to have lived after the 17th century. This was hard for the programme to handle since the background to Newman’s sainthood is that he was devoutly, deeply and learnedly religious, and BBC religious coverage is allergic to the content of religion.

After casting about a bit for the right line, Sunday found it, with almost audible relief, in the idea that Newman was a Remainer. He was against isolation, we were told, and believed in European civilisation. It feels pedantic to point out that Newman died 67 years before the European Economic Community came into being.

But here is a striking passage from his wonderful Apologia Pro Vita Sua, which perhaps has stood the test of time: “What a scene, what a prospect, does the whole of Europe present at this day! And not only Europe, but every government and every civilisation throughout the world, which is under the influence of the European mind! Especially, for it most concerns us, how sorrowful, in the view of religion, even taken in its most elementary, most attenuated form, is the spectacle presented to us by the educated intellect of England, France, and Germany!” Amen to that.

 By the way, why is the programme called Sunday?

Surely the BBC knows that it is supposed to accord equal respect to all faiths. Might it not be accused of having a Christian bias by taking the name of the Christian Sabbath? Do we detect an Islamophobic Auntie here?

The only answer is to rename it “Friday, Saturday, Sunday”, thus satisfying Muslims, Jews and Christians alike. I am told that Hindus do not recognise the religious value of particular days, so no collateral damage there.

 Did you notice that Boris Johnson kept his left hand in his pocket when shaking hands with the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, last week? Was he not taught by his admittedly Bohemian family that this is bad manners? It occurred to me afterwards that perhaps there was something concealed in his hand. I do hope, for the sake of our island story, that it was a bribe.

 This column stirred up controversy by suggesting in mid‑august that Olivia Colman, who plays the Queen in the next series of

The Crown, has a Left‑wing face, and will therefore find it difficult to do justice to her part.

In a Sunday paper, Ms Colman rebukes me. She makes the just and important point that an actor does not have to be the same as the character/ person she/he plays to succeed. This ability to change is the essence of the profession. (And why it is ridiculous to attack actors for blacking up.)

But I maintain that there is such a thing as a Left‑wing face – and a conservative one, and a Right‑wing one, and a soft‑liberal one – and that Ms Colman possesses the first.

The latest stills of her in the role suggest she is acting the part with her usual outstanding skill and is extremely well made‑up. I have considerable confidence she will succeed. But there remains something about the mouth which is not right.

The Queen’s mouth expresses an acceptance – strong‑minded yet gentle – of whatever life may throw at her. Ms Colman’s has that hint of complaint and hauteur which is such a feature of the educated Left.