Foreign Affairs

Its almost five years since I left the UK. Sometime in that period I started to forget some of the reasons for that decision. Today's brilliant article by Stuart Jeffries about differences in the quality of life between France and Britain in the Guardian helped me remember why. True, France might be an extreme example of attachment to la belle vie but I find something attractive about being committed to the quality of life rather than increasing GDP. There seems to be a fundamental difference between the attitudes of mainland Europeans and the Brits that is almost impossible to fathom. These differences even exist between the UK and the Netherlands whose food culture, well, doesn't rival that of France. You can't get anything fixed or sorted here on a Friday afternoon because everyone has gone off to the beach or to their kids' swim lessons.

People enjoy so much free time here and still have enough money to live comfortably. I keep asking myself why Britain is so politically, economically and culturally obsessed with American "free market" values and gives so little value to quality of life issues or social democracy.

In Britain we seem live to work rather than work to live. When I was a student, some time ago now, we were taught about the leisure society to come - how machines would do all the work and we could live lives of self improvement and fulfilment. Somewhere this vision has got sadly lost. We (in the northern hemisphere) are by far the richest society that has ever lived on this planet - with untold security and access to material wealth. Yet the paradox is that it doesn't seem to make us any happier.

Postscript
Another pertinent article appeared in the Guardian on the 27th June and generated a considerable number of comments.