To think British people aren't thought of as rich anymore

I’m finding the debate interesting. Aren’t you?

How does a random sales person in Switzerland know that someone is a British national without seeing their passport? I know lots of British passport holders with not an English/Scottish/Welsh/NI accent amongst them.

@DeliaSmithsEpicGuitarRiff is sleep deprivation affecting your thinking level?

I’ve worked in luxury retail.

I quickly learnt you don’t judge customers by their looks. Sometimes rich looking arabs would come in and chat to their friends for ages and then all leave. Whereas an unsuspecting middle age white woman witht greasy hair and very non flashy clothes and no make up would regularly drop thousands with me buying all sorts.

You treat all customers nicely and hope for some good sales!!!

I love Switzerland. I wonder if you're on holiday somewhere where it is quite noticeable the shops are targeting overseas customers from the Middle East, China etc? Some of the shops have sales assistants who would appear to be, themselves from this demographic?
I've never been treated in anything other than a positive way when in Switzerland but regarding shopping....let's face it, I'm out there in my campervan with my dog. I think 1 look at me walking through the door is likely to say I'm NOT about to purchase a new Omega or Rolex!

@DeliaSmithsEpicGuitarRiff if you wish to draw a parallel with Britain's wealth during the Empire Days and now, may I please direct you to Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". Poverty and Ignorance.

When Britain had an Empire, it also had the Work House.

On a day to day level: high street bank, Boots, Tescos, Kwik Fit, etc, I receive much poorer service standards than I do in Europe.

At a prestige level in the UK and beyond, service standards are not differentiated.

HRTFT but i haven't noticed this. How do these sale people know from afar where you're from? Is it not just as likely, probably more so, your race?

I don't necessarily think British people are not seen as rich per se but definitely agree with you OP that in the travel retail sector, sales assistants make judgements about who has money and where to spend their time.

I work in retail at Heathrow and we make the most money from Chinese, Arab and Nigerian passengers. We make sure we have more staff available when these passengers are flying out and the sales assistants are much more attentive compared to when British passengers are flying to Europe or the US.

Here is an article from a few years back when Heathrow shops actually got in trouble for essentially racially profiling that Chinese customers had more money to spend - www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-43030291.amp

I’m not British and I live in the EU. I don’t think that Brits are looked down on for being poor where I am but the decline of Britain since Brexit has been well documented here and the vast majority think it was a foolish decision based on some idea of Britain being above the rest of us but has since been doing a lot worse.

Because of this the press enjoy reporting on how much worse Britain is doing financially since leaving. I particularly remember one multi-page article that was written about Jaywick, I think it shocked a lot of people that places like that exist in Western Europe. So yes, things like that has an impact on how Britain is viewed by others but I don’t think it’s as detailed as knowing how much your childcare costs are or the housing situation. Although, the poor quality of British housing has always been a bit of a joke to people here. Along with carpeted bathrooms.

I think that it possibly the most depressing thing I've hear in a while. Judging people and deciding who to be nicer too in a bid to get a bigger commission/tip. Try being nice and less judgemental about everyone who crosses your path, you might learn a thing or two and you might find your tips,/commission increase because of it.

I would absolutely hate a salesperson to go full 'razzle dazzle' and try and schmooze me, i can't think of anything worse 😳 it would honestly make me less likely to splash the cash!

In general i don't really enjoy the service culture in some places, some local person being expected to bow and scrape to me and be obsequious, yuck!

Are you actually British yourself OP? I wonder if maybe the Brits where you are aren't receiving worse service necessarily, they are perhaps receiving the service they want?

When was this time when Brits abroad had a certain social status? Must have been a very long time ago. I'm thinking perhaps the 1950s and earlier, when only the wealthy could afford to travel. But surely at this time all tourists had a high social status because only the wealthy of all nationalities would travel.
I'm 50 and have been going abroad since the 80s. Even then, there were plenty of badly behaved Brits abroad. I had teenage holidays in Spain in the very early 90s and the Brits had a bad reputation in Spain then for drunken, yobbish behaviour.

I must have missed that era then, how old do you have to be to remember it?

Britain has always been a rich country full of poor people. Bore off with your colonial guilt stuff. So irritating these days that so many people think ethnicity comes with virtue points.
People living in a ‘colonist’ country and enjoying the exact same advantages and privileges as everyone around them but consider themselves purer because of where their ancestors originally lived.
Everyone wants to be one of the oppressed.

Imaging thinking you're the only person on MN who's ever worked in retain. What an ego.

UK standard of living has gone down, that is the reality I live. I could not care less whether other countries think we are poor or rich or whatever. I rather live in the real world, so the services I get here in the country and in the meantime I have a good time if I go for holiday, I pay no attention to any gossip. Waste of time.
But what is this about the Empire? None of the people who built the Empire are alive. So they are not going to be punished, are they?
What is the point of making bad blood with the guys living in the UK TODAY? We are not guilty of the sins of the past. But we can choose to repeat them or to move forward to treat everyone equally and stop gleeing about other people's misfortune. Let's stick to the latter, shall we?

What's the point of this post exactly?

The truth is travelling abroad as a Brit years ago did have social status....

Most people didn't steal/barter/target low wealth areas for cheap holiday packages & most travelers were wealthy, educated or actively looking for work + the accent ect. Helped fuel a stereotype that British people were are certain class of travelers

That's not the case these days most travel with entire family's once a year depending on income it's usually holiday related & theirs more awareness of them being sometimes problematic

I'm currently in Switzerland, visiting our dd who moved her in the summer. We've visited a few times over the last 6 months.

We've have never been treated negatively in any way, neither has dd in the last 6 months or so.

I don't recognise the contempt, etc that you talk about.

What are you on about. Having cachet or social status in another country because you're a Brit?

Your worldview is really skewed. PS it doesn't stop people from wanting to come here does it.

I agree (also from a former colony)

British poverty does suprise me sometimes as it was such a problem thing for so long the whole "dealing with poverty"/how to get rid of poor people in city's like London+

& I think British people have definitely embarrassed themselves over the years heavily promoting - then acting on - the "barter everything in poor country's cause that's how the locals do it" not realising A) locals have a lot less money/financial prices are verbal as opposed to written down & B) it's encouraged people with fuck all money to travel to these places cause you can always get cheap stuff

I definitely do think the wealth divide has gotten worst over the years

Whilst we're not as rich as the states, as we don't do out and out capitalism in the same way... stats suggest we're really not poor. Also, the states might be 'rich', but increasingly the disparity and poverty out there is shocking. People unable to afford medical bills and ending up homeless. If you've been to san fransico recently you'll know! Tent cities, homeless poo in the street, that DH had to walk around to avoid.

Anyway, stats suggest we're doing just fine.

Globally: The average person lives on about $7.40 per day. In poorer countries, many survive on less than $2.15 a day, which is the extreme poverty line.
In the UK:
The average income works out to about £90 ($110) per day.

The average UK wage puts you in the top 2% of earners globally.

Erm not experienced that, got treated the same as anyone else. Which is as it should be, no preferential treatment and no shunning for being a lice ridden, tinned ravioli eating loser.

We take decisions to make ourselves poorer:

Other countries- let's build roads as it's good for the economy.
UK - building roads is bad as more roads will mean more cars (oh and more economic growth, never mind the growth).

Other countries - let's have cheap electricity
UK - let's create systems which means we have electricity prices 3 times higher than the USA.

Other countries - let's have reliable electricity and decarbonize cheaply
UK - let's have renewable electricity which is unreliable so we have "demand side response" which pays factories to stop using electricity for short periods and makes it unattractive to have factories here.

Other countries - let's increase the amount of power we generate reliably
UK - let's import 30% of our energy from abroad and force our gas and coal power stations to close without replacing them

Other countries - let's welcome investment.
UK - let's reject multi billion dollar investments in new film studios and data centres (read Sam Dumitrous blog about this)

Other countries - let's have cheap reliable infrastructure
UK - let's have the most expensive infrastructure in the world. Let's make it so expensive that our trams cost 10x more to build than France and the the planning permission for one tunnel under the Thames has cost almost £1bn whilst in Norway they build the world's longest road tunnel for £297m.

Other countries - if we are going to make big spending decisions let's make sure the jobs go to our local firms
UK - let's make massive spending decisions which for instance on offshore wind lead to UK wind farms being mostly maintained from Holland, Belgium and Denmark and build with majority foreign content. Let's have the UK renewable industry trade association controlled by foreign state owned companies.

Other countries - if we make policy decisions let's make sure they benefit our companies.
UK - let's create low emission vehicle targets for London and ignore the fact that the majority of cars made in the UK by British workers won't meet the standards when we introduce the policy so in the lead up to it's introduction Londoners have to buy foreign made cars with very few UK made options.

Other countries - let's carefully consider the impact of our economic policies
UK - let's not consider the impact and then be surprised when loss making steel plant and oil refineries are closed and force us to import steel and oil from abroad.

Brits holidays in Switzerland (like skiing) generally have money.