To wonder what the good points of living in the UK are?

[waddlecakes]

If you were selling it abroad as a country people should live in, what would you say are the things you love the most about it?

Cricket. A game with lunch and tea breaks.

Everything. I adore the UK

Specifically the north, but the rest isn't bad

I am Irish. Here are the things I appreciate about life in the UK:

The NHS
Lack of corruption (I moved here in the shadow of the tribunals in Ireland which cost a bomb to discover what every man and his dog knew, ie that everyone in government up to the year 2000 or so was on the fiddle and cronyism is the backbone of Irish politics)
It's a meritocracy in most respects
Public transport is fairly good
Close to Europe
TV
Low cost mobile phone plans
Cost of living is low relative to standard of living
Groceries are varied and plentiful - you can get anything from anywhere in the supermarkets
Neat and tidy well-planned villages
Helpful forums like mumsnet and moneysupermarket where posters are mainly quite knowledgeable about life. A lot of Irish boards seem to be either for ripping the piss out of someone asking questions, or it's cronyism and nod-and-a-wink, so if you don't know where you're going wrong no one is going to put you right.
Friendly people, as long as you initiate the conversation yourself, otherwise it's eyes front and MYOB. Which is also nice sometimes.

I wouldn't use the wide variety of accents mentioned above as a selling point for someone coming from abroad to live here though. Accents are really only interesting to local people so not a good sales pitch to those living abroad, and half of you are incomprehensible to outsiders anyway. My insurers are based in Liverpool and I hate using their call centre!

I forgot about abortion rights - not perfect but a lot better than many other countries.

Also possibility of access to home birth with midwife support, ability to home educate if you want to (comparing to some other EU countries here - obviously not all as some more liberal than us in these respects)

I've been living in the UK for 4 years. (London and now Cornwall) and having worked with the public for many years can say hand-on-heart that I meet many more people who I find much much nicer on the whole than in my home country. Which is Canada.

I do love the British sense of humour, as evinced by the joking claims on this thread that there is freedom of speech, a passable education system and a low tax rate (well, maybe the last one is true if you are Starbucks or Vodafone). :) :) :)

For all that, I have a soft spot for England. Especially when I'm not there.

It's the jaffa cakes, Cornish pasties and ready meals which make your country great.

Marmite, roast lamb , sausages, pubs with roaring log fires, amazing scenery, horses, county shows, the north........

sorry op but how can you not know. Have you never been abroad?

I am on holiday in the USA for the first time. I have never looked forward more to going home to the UK. There are lots of things I will so appreciate when I get home but for the first time ever I have missed English food never thought that I would say that!

We have bread that does not taste of sugar, delicious cheeses, fruit and vegetables that actually taste of something. We also know how to cook seafood imaginatively ie it does not have to be fried. Fried tuna.. Fried oysters ... Fired lobster I ask you.

I'm from Ireland. I love living in England and don't think I'll ever leave.

Things I like are:
NHS. Natives really don't seem to get how absolutely amazing it is to wander into a hospital without a penny in your pocket and get top class care. I got kidney infections for years. Back in Ireland I regularly paid 60 euros to see a useless gp who fobbed me off with antibiotics (which of course I had to pay market rates for - one lot was 25 euros). My first bout here the gp sent me straight for an ultrasound which ruled out anything serious then gave me proper sustained treatment (involving multiple visits) at a total cost to me of 7.60 prescription charge. Similar treatment in Ireland would have cost hundreds.
Lovely polite people who know how to queue!
Everyone makes a good cup of tea
Great rail system
A much wider range of interesting career opportunities
Education is highly respected
Some lovely countryside
Great shopping centres (I'm a rare sc fan)
BBC
Diverse population
Public services are generally efficient
Great theatre
Great motorways

Some of those might seem silly but I really think people who haven't lived elsewhere take far too much for granted.

I have lived abroad a lot and appreciate the following things:

sense of humour
down to earth people
great culture (art, theatre, BBC)
easy to travel around
international and reasonably tolerant
wide variety of food available
public spirit
easy to access countryside
good working conditions
NHS

The beautiful countryside and coastlines.

Cornwall and Pembrokeshire especially.

The NHS, the BBC, the newspapers, the variation in the weather, most areas don't have nasty bity insects or giant spiders, the beer, the pubs, the variety and cheapness of food, the scenery, the huge range of hobbies you can do, the history and culture, the humour, music, nowhere is that far to get to, the lack of parochialism, the lack of corruption

I wouldn't we're already bursting at the seams...! yy I know grumpy bitch

Dorset Apple Cake
Afternoon Tea
Cornish Pasties
Kippers
Bacon Rolls with Daddies sauce
Trifle

Pub culture.

Agree that we don't need to attract people. If they're not deperate to come here then they can enjoy staying where they are. There's alot to be said for staying in the culture you grew up in and just going on holidays to other places..

footpaths
hedgehogs
NHS, and doctors who are are kind and not condescending (in general)
beautiful old houses
radio 4
BBC in general
Waitrose (I know, I know)
free museums
boys' choirs
sense of humour and irony
the country is not too up itself