Petrol and food are cheaper in sunny South Africa - and the Brits can keep their 'Elf an' Safety' laws, too.
Britain may offer some world-class services, but its high living costs make life difficult for even well-paid professionals. Picture: iStock
I had just got back from a service station in Windsor (near the official Royal residence) and fired up social media to see right-wingers blaming the ANC for the huge spike in the fuel price.
So, I took out my receipt to work out what I had just paid to fill my cousin’s car in the UK. And, near enough, the Brits pay 50% more per litre than we do.
Funny, I didn’t notice an ANC fifth column doing their best to destroy one of our former colonisers from within…
The UK can be frightfully (jolly English word, there) expensive to South Africans, with an anorexic 22- to 23-to-one national currency.
A few weeks ago, my daughter in Cardiff complained about paying £18 for a glass of white wine and a pint of beer (about R400).
I couldn’t resist sending her a photo of our lunch bill in Knysna: Steak, egg and chips, trinchado (with steak), one draught beer and one gin and tonic: R209.
Despite the cost of fuel it is, believe it or not, cheaper to use a car for shorter journeys than it is to take the train.
The UK probably has the most expensive public transport in Europe – which is proof positive that the privatisation of rail set in motion by prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the ’80s benefited rich Tories more than anyone else.
Another social problem that is common to most Western democracies: young people are getting poorer than previous generations – the first time this has happened since the end of World War II.
My son and daughter-in-law both have MBAs, both earn well above average salaries for the UK, yet they struggle to put together enough money for a house deposit.
My daughter, a vet, and her boyfriend, an “IT guy”, are in much the same position.
Tax is high, but it seems to hit the middle class hardest because they are too well off to be on benefits and yet not wealthy enough to get on the property ladder.
The National Health Service is, by all accounts, not as good as the private services we get in South Africa.
Want a knee replacement here? No problem – done probably within days.
In the UK, you’d be on a waiting list for a year or more. Yet, when you have a serious problem – like cancer, or a complicated childbirth as my daughter-in-law had, then the NHS is top-notch.
On the other hand, you pay for the good service you get here – both through ever-rising medical aid contributions, as well as shortfalls.
But what truly surprised me about England particularly – having seen the reports of an “invasion” of foreigners – was the demographic mix outside the big cities.
When we went to a kiddies’ Halloween “Pumpkin Patch” event in Surrey, I remarked that there would be more black people at a Steve Hofmeyr concert back at home.
The southeast of England, where you’ll find the “dormitory” towns and villages for the London execs, is very, very white still.
Perhaps that’s because house prices start at the equivalent of R10 million… and rise steeply.
Living in South Africa – which has a “frontier town” mentality when it comes to obeying rules – I found the strictures on virtually everything in normal life, from grading your rubbish to colour-coded walking sticks for the disabled (I kid you not), made me uncomfortable enough to be always looking over my shoulder for fear I’d contravened an unknown “Elf an’ Safety” law.
Oh, and did I forget to mention the weather?
