England is a third world country

Back in September 2010, one of the Pope's aides referred to England as a third world country (see here). I thought this was quite funny as we Brits take a lot of pride in our country. But if you look at the facts, England is falling down the listings as a desirable place to be!

So what constitutes a third world country? One definition is this:

...they are often nations that were colonised by another nation in the past. The populations of third world countries are generally very poor but with high birth rates. In general they are not as industrialised or technologically advanced as the first world...

So England has long enjoyed a 'special' relationship with America. So much so that we followed blindly into a war where there was no evidence of any wrong doing... In fact the 'war on terror' is a holy war...but that is the subject for another discussion... China and India are the future of the planet and we are already finding that businesses are being brought by companies from these nations and the number of skilled employees appearing on these shores from these future super-powers is growing at a phenomenal rate! Sounds like collonisation?

Economics. The glorious pound is now worthless and the subject of jokes across the world. Leaving these shores is extremely expensive. The pound is a useless currency. Plus wages have not grown with inflation for a decade. Combine this with spiralling house prices - and we are all very poor.

High birth rates... I'm not sure on the statistics so can't comment...

What about industrialised / technologically advanced? Well, the country's infrastructure cannot cope. Take transport for example. The tube does not work and cannot cope with the number of people who use it. Aviation - one, word...snow (ha ha ha - see my previous entry here).

Basically, England is a poor servant to anyone who is bigger and it doesn't really work very well... I went to Heathrow during the Snow crisis in December 2010 and saw people lined up in corridors, covered in blankets eating fruit. This reminded me of scenes I saw in India 20 years ago. Sorry England...we're a third world country and there's no sign of a change coming soon...