A stain on our national reputation

A British Foreign and Commonwealth Office report, published today,claims that the cost of administering our consulates is escalating because of a 'disproportionate use' of consulate time by Britons abroad. Many of them, it is reported, have lost passports but an excessive number are seeking consulate help because they have been arrested by the police or ended up in hospital following outbreaks of violence.

Top of the league table of countries who are most affected by this behaviour is Spain, the traditional sun, sea and sex hang out for the 18-30 Club type British holiday makers abroad.



Coming up hard on the rails though is the Czech Republic where all the trouble happens in one place - Prague. This is the favourite and very cheap venue for British stag and hen parties - you know those pre-nuptial extravaganzas where the boys act like untrained animals and the girls like unrestrained sluts. Plane loads of kids fly out to Prague every weekend these days and the tourist money this brings to the Czech Republic must be offset by the amount of damage they do.




Now the British drink and sex macho holiday industry is looking at a new, cheap n'easy destination for a weekend's booze cruise - Latvia, and in particular Riga the capital. A spokesman for the Riga tourist office was quoted today as saying "Latvia is a very quiet, shy country - the people are very calm. They teach their children, for example, not to speak in a tram as they ride. So to have a bunch of loud-mouthed boys come here and drink, take off their shirts, run around the streets and scream and pee on our monuments, it's not very well-received."

I shake my head in anger and despair when I read this stuff. The British - or at least our youth - have long been top of the unpopularity list in every country in Europe for belligerent, aggressive, drunken behaviour. I am at a loss to understand why so many of Britain's young people - particularly when holidaying in a herd - feel the need to behave so appallingly badly.

It's a terrible shame because, despite the bad reputation, its still a minority. The British are among the world's most widely travelled and millions of Britons go abroad annually and are a credit to their country and a pleasure for their hosts.

I am frankly ashamed to be from the same nation as some of these animals who despoil everywhere they go like some rampaging army. But what do you do about it? Short of changing the culture overnight the obvious answer is harsher punishments to deter others. More often than not, however the host nation does not want the hassle of prosecutions and simply either puts up with the vandalism and drunkenness or, in extreme cases, sends them home. In that case the British authorities are powerless to prosecute them in a British court

When the host nation DOES take action then we, the British taxpayer, ends up paying for the time spent assisting and defending them vis a vis the F.O. report I mentioned at the beginning. We really need an agreement throughout the European Community about acts of drunken violence and vandalism so that reports from a foreign government supported by photographic and other evidence can result in a prosecution in their country of residence.

Until then I will continue to cringe as I read year on year of how British yobs sully the reputation of my country in just about every corner of the world.