Britain is world's favourite country, say pollsters

POLLSTERS RECKON that there's no better "brand" than Britain when it comes to being a country.

But despite being reckoned the top place to invest or to visit or indeed to emigrate to, Britain's notional value in terms of pounds, shillings and cents is less than that of the USA, Japan or Germany. The value of Brand USA is reckoned at $18 trillion whereas Brand UK is in 4th spot in the brand value league table, pinned at $3.5 trillion (£2 trillion).

The Anholt Nation Brands Index (NBI) is complied on results of an Internet survey of some 25,907 people in 35 countries. Tina Louise, European marketing director, for Global Market Insite, Inc, reckons Internet-based research means "we can now collect and measure global opinions about people and places incredibly quickly and accurately." So, evidently if you're not online your opinions don't count.

Aside from evaluating the countries in terms of investment or culture, respondents were also asked to assess the inhabitants of the various countries. According to this assessment, UK citizens are considered to be the most polite, most boring and best educated, while the French are seen as the rudest and Americans are the most ignorant and most ambitious.

Here's the top ten:

1. UK
2. Switzerland
3. Canada
4. Italy
5. Sweden
6. Germany
7. Japan
8. France
9. Australia
10. United States

And here's the L'INQ to http://www.nationbrandindex.com