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By Roger Dobson

The Independent - UK

8-1-4



Britons are among the world's most dishonest people, according to research that seems to undermine the country's long-held reputation for fair play.



British people are more likely to steal hotel towels and make false insurance claims than any other nationality, says the study, which puts us at the top of an international league for unethical behaviour. Restaurants, shops and workplaces are also fair game for dishonesty.



The researchers, from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, say that the persistent cheating is costing industry millions.



They quizzed consumers in Europe, America and the Far East about their views on dishonest behaviour and discovered that British consumers have the worst attitude of all. The idea of taking towels from hotel bedrooms was particularly popular, and 40 per cent said it was all right to change the price tags on shopping items.



"The fact that half of Britons thought it OK to make a false insurance claim represents a huge cost to the economy and a challenge to that industry," says the report, published this week in the Journal of Consumer Marketing. "Consumer tolerance of unethical actions - up to and including outright theft - presents a depressing scenario, especially in the UK."



The researchers also found that, compared with other religions, Christians were most likely to favour unethical behaviour.



Those questioned were given 11 scenarios and asked to indicate the strength of their approval or disapproval. These included drinking a can of drink in a supermarket and not buying it; reporting a lost item as stolen to an insurance company to collect the money; changing price tags in stores; using an employer's telephone to make private calls; not saying anything when charged too little in a restaurant; taking towels from hotels; and renting a double-bed hotel room and using it for more than two people. The majority of British consumers said it was OK to cheat in eight of the 11 scenarios.



"We make great statements about our moral superiority - especially compared with wicked, rapacious Americans," say the researchers. "Yet, when it comes to basic ethics - making a clear distinction between right and wrong - we fall well behind standards in the USA."



Worldwide, the most objectionable behaviour is drinking a can in a supermarket without buying it. The most tolerable behaviour is taking towels from hotels. In the UK, it is estimated that up to 5 per cent of hotel towels go missing each year. And an online poll showed that one in five hotel guests admit stealing or considering stealing toiletries from the cleaning trolley.



The study said nationality, age and religion were significant predictors of how consumers viewed questionable behaviour, but that gender made no difference.



© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd



http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_b ... ory=546773

Wow! This is a controversial report!

I'm sure there are segments of the American, European, Australian societies that would match toe-to-toe with the Brits.

I would not go along with that. I found Britons a very honest and upright people.

Now the Italians are known to rob you blind. Kosta Nostra indeed.

without details of the stats from other countries, it's just so much smoke. for example, it could very well be (on an arbitrary scale)



britain...41.7

france...41.2

spain....40.3

USA......40.1





get my drift? perhaps britons really are at the top, but compared to other countries, it's a tiny fractional lead.



i distrust most 'studies' like this. half the time they're just academics trying to find ways to get grants to dilly-dally about studying nonsense.

furthermore, since the study was done by manchester institute, in GB, one wonders if respondents were easier with their words speaking with someone with the same accent/idioms they're familiar with, while respondents in other countries, being quizzed by a foreigner, were much less willing to let down their guard so to speak.

plazul wrote: The Brits may be a bit dishonest but I think they have the world's greatest sense of humor. Dry wit and understatement is their style. They also have a marvelous sense of the ridiculous and I think Monte Python really reflected that well.

And Brits are masters at funny facial expressions when they're delivering their jokes, digs, and one liners.


The Irish are more dishonest than the Brits. Its true the Brits are very dry and Yes,I can say that they have no sense of homor. They tend to laugh at every other country's misfortunes and We Irish have had a battering from them down the years. Poor Old Paddy's.

First off, the monogrammed towels merely reflect the fact that my quaint little house is named "Los Angeles Hilton", and secondly, I was very thirsty in Safeways.

Sure, some of this stuff goes on, but from my observations, not to the degree that is being suggested.

Imagine my funny facial expression when I started typing

Uncle Kram wrote: First off, the monogrammed towels merely reflect the fact that my quaint little house is named "Los Angeles Hilton", and secondly, I was very thirsty in Safeways.

Sure, some of this stuff goes on, but from my observations, not to the degree that is being suggested.

Imagine my funny facial expression when I started typing


Cool ash tray collection you got there Kram.

StupidCowboyTricks wrote: Cool ash tray collection you got there Kram.


So many that I might have to give serious consideration to starting to smoke

Uncle Kram wrote: So many that I might have to give serious consideration to starting to smoke


We appear to have one of those threads now so you may want to consider.

Don't call us - we'll call you

Clancy wrote: [quote=CVX]By Roger Dobson

The Independent - UK

8-1-4



Britons are among the world's most dishonest people,













You've got to pick-a-pocket or two, boys,

You've got to pick-a-pocket or two.



Large amounts don't grow on trees.

You've got to pick-a-pocket or two.



You've-- got-- to-- pick---a---pocket-- or ---twoooooooo



.


"Robin Hood, what a crook:

Gave away all he took.

Charity's fine, subscribe to mine.

Get out and pick a pocket or two"

Clancy wrote: [quote=Bez]





Dear old gent passing by

Something nice takes his eye

Everything's clear, attack the rear

Get in and pick-a-pocket or two.


When I see someone rich,

Both my thumbs start to itch.

Only to find some peace of mind

I have to pick a pocket or two.

Little story ...my friend the one with all the crims as relatives told me that her son had appeared in court,the offence was robbing a local boots chemist not to mention five warrants, well after robbing everything he could get his grubby little mitts on he left his DNA on one of the windows - well bang to rights i hear you all say ...now thats a big fat nooooooooo coz he left his DNA on the out side of the window ,so to cut a long story short his mum says to me " oh well his brief will just say he walked past the window and cut himself" and in light of no other evidence .well i know ive been out of the met for some time now but i just cant believe the sheer nerve of crooks nowadays .

This is an interesting thread. I don't think Brits are any worse than anyone else...peple are just people no matter what nationality and they learn from what they are taught as children...so if mum says it's ok to take something that isn't your own..be it one sweetie from the pick and mix in passing or a hotel towel..that is what the kids will learn!!! I don't know of anyone who doesn't take the odd stamp from the office or make the odd personal phone call...and that applies friends in several countries!!

Two points.

Point one “The Independent” Newspaper is gutter press pretending to be high-brow.

Politically left of left and appeals to those less able to decipher the numerous typo’s in “The Guardian”.

It presents the sort of rubbish that reaches and resonates with the few remaining brain cells of the sandal-wearing tree-hugging bunny-cuddling lentil-eating enviro-fascists who just LURVE to go in for cerebral-self-flagilation.

Most thinking people stick to The Daily Telegraph. The stories and features are harder to disprove.

Point two. If we WERE so dishonest would we admit it? Being the top of such a survey actually shows that we should be very much closer to if not actually at the bottom hence by claiming to being the most dishonest we are actually the most honest!

Nurse! Is it time for my medication yet?

Britons Own Up To Being The World's Most Dishonest People



We're also renowned for being a lying bunch of buggers.

Good points there, Golem and Abbey...the headline is actually a sort of paradox...

I wonder what impact our open immigration poilcy has on these statistics? Then again the British are so accommodating that we will confess to anything just keeps everyone else happy.

King Terry wrote: I wonder what impact our open immigration poilcy has on these statistics? Then again the British are so accommodating that we will confess to anything just keeps everyone else happy.


There are problems in all countries and all societies but the UK has a somewhat unique situation due to the total loss of national identity and pride.

This has come about over a period of time. I saw it start it in the late 50’s when the ‘sins’ of the British Empire started to get taught in our schools together with dumbing down of education and standards.

The markedly almost communist aspects of the UK Welfare State were becoming reinforced with what was intended to be a form of government where everybody was safeguarded ‘From the cradle to the grave’ to where everybody was levelled down with a gradually increasing agenda, finally actually declared as such, of the deliberate redistribution of wealth.

In essence we moved into what was in effect the first multi-cultural society where we had a communist culture in all but name and a capitalist culture with which it was in competition hence the reputation that the UK rightly earned as being ‘The Sick Man of Europe’.

I’m getting to the point shortly.

Over more time with our politicians being far more interested in gaining power than doing the right thing more and more attention was paid to the majority of people to attract their votes and there were numerically a dam sight more crypto-communists than capitalists.

So our laws changed to give the Welfare State greater and greater influence and I think it was around the mid 60’s that the point came when rather than being an environment in which people lived and worked, it became the reason that people lived and worked.

They needed to do this in order to pay the increasing taxes to support it and let it grow taking over more and more of people’s freedoms by their becoming more and more dependent upon it’s handouts.

And the result has been that the British people, or more properly the English people, have both lost their identity, lost their pride, both nationally as well as personally, lost their history (history lessons in schools today are NOTHING like they were 40 years ago) and so lost any sense of responsibility to their community.

Then there’s been the dreadful influences of NuLabour. And Political Correctness. And the awful human rights legislation, something that has no equivalent human responsibilities legislation to ameliorate it and that is causing so much trouble. And our utterly insane experiment at creating a ‘multi-cultural’ society. What unbelievable crass idiot thought THAT one up goodness knows but he should be subjected to the fire ant treatment for starters.

That and our equally insane ‘asylum seekers’ policies. (just when DID the concept of the granting of Political Asylum change to the granting of asylum to anyone who didn’t like their own country? anyway)

Then there’s the enlargement of the EU. Most every other ‘old’ EU country set limits on what handouts people coming from the new countries of the enlarged EU could get but not the UK. Oh no, Blair told the nation that the expected number of EU immigrants would be around 30,000. Last count it was around 350,000.

So all in all it’s no wonder that the British and especially the English are dishonest. We don’t see a need to be honest other than if we know we will be found out if we’re not.

Great Britain and especially England is a nation in big trouble and as our economy fails as the massive National and personal debts that people have start to get defaulted upon – and they surely will – then the social unrest that will follow will not be nice to be around.

Then there’s the influence that the immigrant settlements will have on it all, for make no mistake, over the last 5 – 7 years we’ve not seen immigration, we’ve seen settlements springing up. That’s an unknown but sure as G-d made little green apples they’ll add to the fire.

I really do fear for the future of Great Britain. We’re now the Sick Man of Europe in a different way, it just that we’re in the pre-symptom phase of the fever that is to come.

Never mind. Not all golems are men of clay.