Britain falls to 25th best place to live in the world… behind Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Hungary
By Peter Allen
Last updated at 12:39 PM on 06th January 2010
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Britain has dropped to 25th place on a list of the best places in the world to live – behind countries like the Czech Republic, Andorra and Lithuania.
While France tops the poll for the fifth year in row, the UK is associated with a dismal climate, soaring crime rate and cost of living, congested roads and equally overcrowded cities.
Even former Communist countries where unemployment is still rife are considered better places to live.
The Czech Republic and Lithuania were not even accepted into the European Union until 2004.
Enlarge Cars near high-rise flats in Vilnius, Lithuania: The Baltic state came in three places above Britain in the list
Enlarge A block of flat in the Czech city of Most: The eastern European country came just above Britain in the poll
Since then thousands of people from both countries have flooded into the UK, but most are drawn by the chance to make money in a liberal, entrepreneurial economy, rather than because of Britain’s quality of life.
Many eastern Europeans make as much money as they can in the UK before returning home at the earliest opportunity.
The Quality of Life Index, published by International Living magazine for the 30th year in a row, puts Britain down five places from 20th in 2009.
In all, 200 countries are surveyed across nine categories, including cost of living, culture and leisure, environment, safety, culture and weather.
Australia is placed second after France, with Switzerland in third.
Residents across the Channel enjoy everything from Riviera beaches and Alpine ski resorts to arguably the best health service in the world, but it is the country’s ‘bon vivant’ lifestyle which sets it apart.
Enlarge Ice skaters trek around the frozen Lake Nasijarvi in Tampere, southern Finland: The Scandinavian country came 18th in the list of best places in the world
While British people are nowadays renowed for their TV dinners and binge drinking, the French savour the finer things in life day-in, day-out.
This includes freshly baked bread twice a day, two hour lunch breaks in which to enjoy cheap cordon bleu restaurants, and some of the best wine in the world.
Working hours are far shorter than those experienced by stressed-out British people, who have far less holiday entitlement too.
The French, in contrast, take most of August off, view Sunday leisure as sacrosanct, and have far more public holidays, as well as less crime and dirt.
‘In France, life is savoured,’ said Jackie Flynn, publisher of International Living magazine.
TOP 25 PLACES TO LIVE
1. FRANCE
2. AUSTRALIA
3. SWITZERLAND
4. GERMANY
5. NEW ZEALAND
6. LUXEMBOURG
7. U.S.
8. BELGIUM
9. CANADA
10. ITALY
11. NETHERLANDS
12. NORWAY
13. AUSTRIA
14. LIECHTENSTEIN
15. MALTA
16. DENMARK
17. SPAIN
18. FINLAND
19. URUGUAY
20. HUNGARY
21. PORTUGAL
22. LITHUANIA
23. ANDORRA
24. CZECH REPUBLIC
25. UK
‘I don’t think anyone will argue that France is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, where there is so much pride in all the small details.
‘The French love little window boxes filled with flowers, tidy gardens, pretty sidewalk cafes, and clean streets. Cities are well tended and with little crime.’
Variety is also seen as a major factor in France’s attractiveness, with the survey noting: ‘Romantic Paris offers the best of everything, but services don’t fall away in Alsace’s wine villages, in wild and lovely Corsica, in lavender-scented Provence. Or in the Languedoc of the troubadors, bathed in Mediterranean sunlight.’
The U.S.A dropped from third to seventh place this because of last year’s economic collapse. ‘Sustaining the American Dream has escalated out of the reach of many,’ said a magazine spokesman.
While countries like France, Italy and Australia are considered to have the best climates, Britain does not top a single category.
Germany, which comes fourth in the overall survey, is widely praised for its efficiency and leisure facilities.
The survey notes: ‘In Germany, everything works and works well. Its houses are built to last, and their legendary autobahns are still mostly without speed limits.
‘If you enjoy sports, even small towns have numerous facilities. Some odd ones too—the Harz Mountains now has a specialist hiking trail for nudists. From spas to parks to North Sea beaches, Germany is arguably the world’s most naturist-friendly country.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1240988/France-tops-list-best-places-live-world-fifth-year-row–Britain-languishes-25th.html#ixzz0bq1KdtLO
and the reason?
Know what it is yet?
Lord Carey and others have barely begun to scratch the surface.
The time for change is not now, it was twenty, thirty plus years ago.
But in the circumstances NOW will have to do. Not tomorrow or next election time, but now!
- An ancient Englishman, Devon, UK, 06/1/2010 13:16
WE HAD FOURTH RICHEST ECONOMY TODAY IT’S AROUND 8TH- FABIAN GRADUALISM AT WORK!!
was there not a category for which country pays out the most generous benefits
UK would def be in first place
- kevin quilter, leicester UK not OK(and getting worse), 6/1/2010 13:15
Sorry, addendum to previous post the political party is called British Pride, not British Party.
Whoop’s, there I go, lying already !
- Luciano, London, 6/1/2010 13:14
After living in Germany for twenty-two years and more recently in France for eight years the quality of life is far superior in these countries than in the present UK. The most noticeable features of these countries is respect exists amongst all people, young and old, and also decorum. Service is excellent and food couldn’t be better in quality and is much cheaper and more varied and local produce is given pride of place on the shelves of the shops including family owned shops as well as the larger supermarkets.
- mm, uk, 6/1/2010 13:09
Maybe if we had only followed France and became a democratic republic, we wouldn’t have all those hangers-on and that insult to our intelligence The House of Lords!
- Harry Hewitt, Windsor UK, 06/1/2010 12:34
That’s the result of replacing hereditary peers with Tony’s Cronies and Brown’s Clowns in the House of Lords. A transformation made possible thanks to muppets like you who voted Labour.
- PT, London, 6/1/2010 12:58
So why have we got such an immigration problem then if all their countries are so much better than here?
- Sue, London, 6/1/2010 12:55
as high as 25th ?!?!
- Dan, watford, 6/1/2010 12:55
This country would be great if it wasnt for all the dross from around the world thats decided to live here. Courtesy of our more than generous benefits system.
- martyn robinson, northampton uk, 6/1/2010 12:51
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Blimey – I’m surprised it is so high with Gormless as PM
- Paul, Newbury, UK, 6/1/2010 12:51
25th? That’s not so bad when you consider that we have had 13 yrs of Labour.
I’ll tell you what……. Let’s vote them back in and go for last next time.
- steve, UK, 6/1/2010 12:50
Well I am happy living in the UK, things wax and wane but overall things are pretty good here. Labour will be gone soon so we can start rebuilding, there is snow on the ground and the sun has just come out, fantastic. But then I do live in the Cotswolds. Sorry to appear smug!
- Alan, Broadway Worcs, 6/1/2010 12:44
I could afford a decent house in France (detached in beautiful countryside, with land – £50,000). In the UK, where I’ve worked and paid taxes for nearly 50 years, I can only afford a wooden holiday chalet (£85,000). And when I walk my dogs in France I meet only friendly smiling people. In the Uk I get nothing but moaners and complainers.
- JohnRobert, Sussex UK, 6/1/2010 12:38
Well as it’s so bad over here, maybe all the foreigners will stop coming to live here and the one’s that are here… Go back home!
Thus:
More homes, jobs and benefits for needy Brits who have paid in to the system all their lives!
- BURT, London, 6/1/2010 12:38
So why do all the illegals want to come to this Country. Oh of course they dont get houses and benefits in France on the same scale as us mugs give them.
- jacqui, southampton, 6/1/2010
I can say from personal experience that Brittany, especially, is great. In France, the administration (admittedly sometimes bureaucratic) works, things get done and the police regard crime as their job, not ticking boxes and prioritizing politically correct aspects like “racist crime” and driving offences as in the UK. You are left alone to live as you wish.
- Ian Millard, Exeter UK, 6/1/2010 12:11
FRANCE JUST INTRODUCED A NEW LAW- CALL YOUR HUBBY/WIFE NAUGHTY NAMES- YOU CAN END UP IN COURT- FRANCE IS MUCH LARGER SO YOU GET TO KNOW LESS……….THE LAW WILL BE COMING HERE ALSO- TRIAL IN FRANCE….THEY DON’T GO APE- OVER IT COMES!
CHECKOUT WHEN THIS WAR WRITTEN
In time these corporations will be all that are left. Then they will put away their cheap credit cards, their discounts, their special mortgage offers. The offers of free credit cards falling through the letter box will cease. The only thing on offer will be pittance wages.
YET COMRADE BROWNSKI AND CO NEVER SAW ANYTHING COMING………….
SAXONS AWAKE!
http://www.saxonsawake.org.uk
The Dictatorship of the Bankrupt
Miles Harris
Salisbury Review – Winter 2003
In England of the 1930′s Colonel Brown could always borrow a few bob from his local Martin’s Bank if he was short. Money and debt was a class thing. Upper class people borrowed from the bank, lower class people went to the pawnbroker. But managers were always looking for people who wanted to better themselves, that is move from one class to the next. The manager, himself a curious intermediate figure in the class structure, a eunuch of money who rarely borrowed, had an acute ear for accent, dress, politics and the state of your nails. Like Captain Mainwaring of Dad’s Army he could smell class. He would have had no trouble in lending money to Diana Mosley, but with the lower orders a slight nuance of counter jumping, an over-eagerness to please, could see credit refused.
But by the 1950s the deserving lower middle classes were being lent more money. My father, an engineer, was able to borrow £5000 to buy a small farm. He believed implicitly in authority and never missed a penny payment. It took the whole family from the lower middle class to the middle class. My grandfather was a railway carriage painter, my brothers went to Oxford, Cambridge and Exeter. I went to medical school.
Then in the seventies came the credit card. The high street bank and the manager lingered on for a couple of decades but by the nineties banks had become boutiques and managers ‘investment’ advisors selling certificates in the tech boom. Day to day money lending, or banking, was done by phone and cash dispenser. The bank manager was replaced by voices with Scottish accents in call centres. Scottish accents, marketing experts assured the banks, implied honesty. Debt was ‘normalised’. Money became a commodity. Credit card companies sold it to anybody who asked. Most people managed to pay the price asked, about 27% a year. Those who couldn’t were expected to go bust. One way round disaster was to buy money from another credit card company to pay off the first and so on. In an era of tumbling interest rates it was easy.
Now economists assure us that interest rates are to rise. That those who have saved, who have always paid their credit cards on time, who have only a few hundred pounds left on their mortgages, can soon expect their reward. They should look forward to taking their seats on the Last Day of Borrowing, when interest rates will rise, and those who spent too much will cry ‘Lord Lord I did’na ken.’ And Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, will say ‘Well ye ken the noo.’ It is not
going to happen yet. We are first going to have to pass through a valley in which the middle classes will see their wealth expunged. A type of Marxist revolution is afoot, with a Dictatorship of the Bankrupt in view.
The conventional wisdom is that in a world of low interest rates those who hold cash are king. The price of goods, fuelled by the miracle of globalisation will fall, so those who have been prudent and hung onto their money will now reap their reward. ‘Come unto me all ye who have saved and I will give you a half price Caribbean Cruise.’ Half price because the crew will be made up of Tamils to whom £12 a day is riches beyond compare, half price because the ship will have been built by near slave labour in a Chinese shipyard at a fraction of the price of anything similar made in Europe.
Left behind will be the overpaid debt-ridden workers of Britain, often to be found in Labour’s most desperately sought constituency, floating voter land. These are people who have been given no warning of the consequences of debt. Instead on TV and through their letter boxes they are encouraged daily to ruin themselves on credit cards, assume second mortgages that will, if interest rates rise, take their houses, or enter debt consolidation schemes that have only one exit, the bankruptcy courts.
A whole generation has being brought up to believe that the low cost, cheap credit, global bonanza will go on for ever. They have not been told that to be in debt and facing lean, poor hungry economies who can sell their labour at a tenth of yours is to face destitution. But as our major companies shift their call centres, factories and transport to cheap third world countries, many workers will be left with falling wages or the dole. As I write HSBC has announced plans to close 4000 jobs in the UK, 10% of its workforce, and transfer them to Malaya, China and India. What better time for such companies to start taking to the lifeboats. With many of its employees strangled by debt, few are in a position to strike.
At present there is no shortage of jobs. But what lies ahead? Britain is being flooded with labour, both illegal and legal. This year the government issued 150,000 work permits virtually on demand. It plans to issue more next year, and all permit holders are effectively guaranteed a permanent home in Britain. Apostles of globalization say that an expanding labour market coupled with the growth of free trade is a win win situation. We can all only go on getting richer.
But globalisation could be the pyramid sale of the century, a South Sea Bubble to end all bubbles. Do we really believe that some of the most repressive and corrupt countries in the world hold the secret to a universal expansion of world trade and wealth for all? Do we really think that importing a large non-tax-paying black market labour force coupled with an open door policy on work permits will protect the jobs of the indigenous British? And if these are not solutions, what is likely to happen to a country burdened with personal debt, not only among people who eat hamburgers and watch daytime TV, but to its backbone, the careful middle classes, who believe globalization was the final cure to poverty, mortgage and remortgage?
Until a couple of years ago few people worried, but now those of us with experience of modern management know that people live not in constant hope of increasing wealth, but in fear of the suddenly summoned meeting at work in which they are told that due to global conditions, they are going to be ‘downsized’, and are so much in debt they have to accept less money or just meekly leave. No wonder globalisation is trumpeted through city boardrooms as the wealth creating engine to end all wealth creating engines. It is for the rich. Who is going to pay for a coming army of the dispossessed and unemployed who find their jobs have, at the magic touch of globalisation’s wand, being lifted from Crawley to Lahore, or snatched from under their noses by brickies from Bosnia? Not the waiter on the Caribbean cruise, the work permit shark working out of Liechtenstein at £3000 an application, the sweatshop workers in the east end who do not know what income tax is, or the call centre worker in Calcutta hugging £25 a week to his chest and thinking himself rich beyond the dreams of avarice. It will have to be by taxes. Taxes that keep interest rates low and credit card demands bearable. Taxes that will fund the dole and keep Labour in power for another term.
Big companies will not pay. They will just threaten to go overseas, and with virtual seats at Blair’s cabinet table they will be listened to. Instead it will be the thrifty and the law-abiding middle class of Britain who will be milked. Those who have paid off their mortgages, saved for their pensions, insured themselves against illness, or despite government regulation, run small businesses. You bought a private medical insurance policy a few years back? The government already takes a small cut of the premium, why not a slice more? You have provided for your family after your death? How unfair – Let’s increase inheritance tax for the middle income earner by 25%. Council taxes? Not quite the political dynamite they might at first appear. Why not cap them for people over 65 and increase them by 15% for anybody else with a house over £300,000? You have a son at private school? Let’s add a ten per cent education deduction to the fees. Free travel for everybody in London? Means test it.
But why stop there? Regulation is an even better way of financing debt. It is attractive because it relieves unemployment at the expense of those in work. You own a successful florists shop? We’ll send somebody round to check on disabled access at your expense. It will only cost £300 for the first visit and £125 a year thereafter. You employ a handful of people in the business? Let us burden you with the same mass of regulation as a multinational. You complain that the cost of administering your employees’ tax and family benefits will drive you out of business? All the better. One of Labour’s big corporate donors can buy you up for a song.
In time these corporations will be all that are left. Then they will put away their cheap credit cards, their discounts, their special mortgage offers. The offers of free credit cards falling through the letter box will cease. The only thing on offer will be pittance wages. Then the true meaning of globalisation will hit us as the middle class vanishes, wages tumble, true deflation sets in, and Britain becomes, along with the rest of Europe, a sleazy economic annexe to the mighty capital engine of the US. Blair would then go down in history as Britain’s Eva Peron, promising everything to everybody in return for adulation. After the Perons came an army of the dispossessed, and eventually, a day when the banks closed and savers stood in the streets wondering from where their next meal would come.
Ecologists know that destroying a habitat leads to the destruction of the species. Our habitat: work, rectitude, a horror of debt, independence in old age are all under threat. No country can survive without a stable middle class. Blair’s Britain may be incubating a dreadful version of Weimar and the Reich