Hi there Plugman, and welcome to ECN. Which part of the country are you in?

Dave makes an excellent argument in favor of retaining BS1363. I'd say that the main downside to most people is that our 13A plugs are rather bulky, and seem especially so when fitted on the end of a thin 2-core lamp flex. I have a problem with some of the cheap and nasty imported plugs (you know, the ones with very thin fuse clips so that they get hot under heavy loads), but that's a design flaw in the particular make of plug, not a fault of the overall BS1363 design.

I remember a proposal back in the mid-1970s to introduce a common European plug. The prototype unit had three flat-blade pins mounted in-line with the blades parallel, except the center ground pin was slightly offset to one side (imagine the Switss design with flat blades in place of round pins). It was rated 16A maximum, and a duplex outlet had two such sockets mounted vertically side by side. Nothing ever came of it, and I've never seen another reference to it since.

C-H,
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The EU would never, ever, force Britain to change to another plug that is already in use.
Oh come on now.... You know I can't let that go by without commenting! [Linked Image]

The EU frequently introduces directives which force people to change things whether they want to or not, in the name of "harmonization." Are you saying that the EU did not force upon us the CE marking scheme, the EMC directive, and the Low Voltage Safety directive, to name but three?