I’ve been watching a show on ITV (English television channel) called Your Pound Abroad, and I was flabbergasted by its biased. As the title implies the show revolved around the strength of the pound and a British persons spending power when travelling to foreign destinations, with the main example being Spain.

Of course the show covered the important point, that with the increasing weakness of the pound most foreign destination have got more expensive, which most British people would agree with. What annoyed me was the whole one-sidedness of the show.

The great example was of some English bar where in the last 2 years the owner has had to slash prices on a plate of fish and chips from 9.95 Euros to 5.95 Euros. 5.95 Euros for some fish and chips!!!!  Cod in the local supermarket costs no more than 4 Euros and that feeds 4 people. And a bag of chips costs around a euro. This bar, if it uses a decent supplier, should get the products even cheaper than that. I’m sorry but if it costs 23.80 to feed 4 at his bar I’m not surprised he’s losing business.

Next we hear from some retired couple who bought a property 2 years ago for near 300,000 Euros. Now as their pensions don’t go as far they are contemplating going back to the UK. But they would have difficulty selling now at that same price a recuperating their money. But just 5 minutes earlier the presenter made the point ”2 years ago 1 pound would give you 1.5 euro, now 1 pound would give you 1.05 euro”.

So by that logic, when that couple bought at 300,000 Euros, the equivalent would have been 200,000 pounds, now to recoup that same investment they could sell at 210,000 Euros and recoup 200,000 pounds!

Of course that was not the point of the show, the idea was to paint anything outside of Britain as expensive, so why not go to a camping site in the UK instead…

Andrew Belles
Costa del Sol News