British Media Insists Britain Is Best -- At Being Rated Worst

And if it can't be the worst, just focus on London and it's bound to be rated the most expensive. London can now lay claim to having the most expensive residential property and public transport in the world. It is more than twice as expensive to dine out in London as in New York. Unfortunately for newspaper headline writers, London lags just behind Moscow with the second highest cost of living. But the Independent and Daily Mail would like you to know that the UK does have the most expensive dental care in Europe. And now, "It's Official: England is the most crowded country in Europe" -- or, well, actually read the rest of the article, and it seems that it's poised to probably be the most overcrowded major European country and might be already, but anyone who can count is busy conducting surveys.

According to reports in the national British press, Britain is rated the worst in Europe for protecting privacy, has the worst state pension, the worst rate of shoplifting, is the fattest, the sickliest, and the most drug addicted nation in Europe. It has the worst underage sex rate and teenage pregnancy rate.

Outside European league tables, Britain was damned by a recent UNICEF report as having the most unhappy children in the Western world. British workers have the longest working hours in Europe and have the shortest paid holiday entitlement. The UK now has the worst loss of skilled workers to emigration in the world.

Taking binge drinking as an example, despite all the binge drinking horror headlines, the UK is surprisingly not quite the worst in Europe. The level of what is termed binge drinking is also slightly lower in the UK than in other European countries. For a woman, three large glasses of wine -- or for a man (if we're going to stick with drinking stereotypes), four pints of beer on one night out -- is considered binge drinking. Undoubtedly the camera doesn't lie, and it's considered acceptable in British society to end a pleasant evening face down in a pool of vomit. But apparently there are two countries that fare worse. Which is comforting.

All of the ratings above are taken from news stories in the past year. How watertight these statistics and surveys are, I couldn't say. Figures are subject to fluctuation, and either 47.3%, 85%, or 98% of statistics are made up, depending on who you believe. Further investigation only leads to confusion. Some of the definitive headline phrases such as "is the worst" become "is among" and "could potentially be" or "is thought to soon be" as you read on.

British broadsheet newspapers such as the Times, Telegraph and Independent favor stories rating Britain "the worst" the most. At least the Sun tabloid accentuates the positive. Luckily all those fat breast-feeding teenagers have given British women the biggest breasts in Europe. At last, something to be proud of.

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