’Swiss’ and ‘quality’ have always been synonymous. Switzerland’s economy depends on it – from its banks to its watches to its picture-perfect tourism and top-rated system of governance. But since 2008, Switzerland’s reputation as one of the world’s most admired and competitive countries has been jeopardized by sustained attacks in online media on its banking secrecy practices and referenda seen as limiting the rights of foreign residents. Even Switzerland’s reputation as the world’s leading democracy has been questioned.

To help counter such media attacks, Switzerland needs an integrated, best practices use of Swiss social media channels to protect and strengthen its country brand image. My Master’s thesis, How Switzerland Can Use Social Media to Protect and Promote its Country Brand (below), examines how well Switzerland’s communication strategy abroad is currently supported by its social media compared to best practices and a benchmark country. It also suggests a possible correlation between best practices use of social media and position gains or losses in the major country ranking indexes.

As the Swiss government uses the results of country brand ranking surveys to identify the strengths and weaknesses on which it bases its Communication Strategy Abroad, my research focused on qualitative elements used to rank countries, such as perception of a country’s culture and people, by Anholt’s Nation Branding Index (NBI) and IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY). An interview with Stephane Garelli, Director of the WCY, indicated a correlation between drops in certain elements of Switzerland’s image abroad and intense negative online media attention.

Interviews were also conducted with Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey about using social media to promote her agenda, and with Nicolas Bideau, Head of Presence Switzerland, about plans for using social media to support the government’s Communication Strategy Abroad.

Six major Swiss social media channels, which correlate with the NBI Hegaxon and the Swiss communication strategy, were identified: country brand image, information gateway, tourism, governance, investment, and news media. These were evaluated for their integration and depth as well as their ability to engage their target audiences. Swiss social media was then compared to that of Sweden, which was selected as a benchmark for its equivalence to Switzerland in competitiveness and for following social media best practices. Finally, Swiss and Australian head-of state social media were compared.

Switzerland, unlike Sweden, is not following social media best practices. Even though the investment and news media channels have social media depth, they are not integrated with the other main strategic channels. Presence Switzerland, of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), is mandated to fulfill Switzerland’s communication strategy. But it doesn’t use the power of collaborative social media channels to help lead positive and neutralize negative perceptions of Switzerland’s actions. And the Swiss presidency only makes limited use of one social media channel, compared to a three-channel best-practices use by Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.

The outcome of this research is a list of six recommendations for how Swiss social media channels could be better integrated and extended to more effectively promote and protect Switzerland’s country brand from attacks that may have led to its loss of ranking in two of the major 2011 country brand indexes.

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Yes, that’s right. Back in November, the 2010 Governors Awards presented an honorary Oscar to Jean-Luc Godard, the controversial Swiss director who is probably best known for his 1960 film Breathless – not to be confused with Richard Gere’s 1983 remake. Unlike the other winners, he didn’t show. Perhaps it was because he was just one of four recipients, including Francis Ford Coppola. Or perhaps it was because the Academy has never even nominated one of his films. Whatever the reason, ‘the most radical, audacious, and influential New Wave filmmaker’, who has informed the work of award-winning directors like Tarantino, Scorcese, and Soderbergh, had his Oscar delivered to him in Switzerland.

There have been Swiss who showed up for their statues, of course. Rene Zellweger, Swiss through her father, picked up her best supporting actress Oscar in 2004 for Cold Mountain. In 2002, first time nominee Christian Frei stayed seated when his documentary feature, War Photographer, didn’t win. But he did go up to the podium to accept the 2010 Sundance World Cinema Documentary prize for Space Tourists, about the first woman, Anousheh Ansari, to pay $20 million for a space ride.

As far as Oscars go, Swiss films haven’t done too badly. Switzerland is one of the top dozen countries for foreign language film statues, winning two of its five nominations : one for Dangerous Moves in 1984 and the other for The Journey in 1991.

Not to be overlooked are other major film awards the Swiss have garnered. Cannes handed over the Jury Prize to Swiss director Alain Tanner in 1981 for Light Years Away. He also won best screenplay from the National Society of Film Critics in 1977 for Jonah who will be 25 in the Year 2000. Irene Jacobs won the best actress award at Cannes in 1991 for Three Colors Blue, and Bruno Ganz received the London Circle Film Critics best actor award in 2004 for Downfall. But the Swiss (Austrian) actor with the most wins is Maximillian Schell, who won the 1962 Oscar, Golden Globe, and NY Film Critics best actor awards for Judgement at Nuremberg, as well as a best supporting actor Golden Globe in 1993 for the TV movie Stalin.

Since award presenters and recipients are always telling us that the nominees are just as important as the winners, notable Swiss nominations include Marc Forster’s 2005 Golden Globe, Bafta, and DGA Award nods for directing Finding Neverland, 1984 Golden Globe best film Dangerous Moves, 1995 Golden Globe and Bafta best film Three Colors Red, and 1977 Golden Globe best supporting actress Marthe Keller for Marathon Man.

There’s a good chance, given the Swiss-sounding names of several of this year’s Oscar nominees, that there will be some winners of Swiss origin tonight. Whoever they are, in the words of Swiss soccer fans…

Thursday night, the intrepid Dr Bailey of TV’s ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ saved a patient using Twitter, which surgeons in real life do too.

Twitter promotion continued the next day with a Swissinfo article about Twiplomacy being used by half the G20 world leaders “to become more transparent and get their views across.” So with surgeons and world leaders from Barack Obama to Norway’s PM using Twitter to save lives and run countries, why isn’t the Swiss presidency among them?

According to the Digital Policy Council, 20% of heads of state don’t think Twitter is for the birds. Barack Obama used it to get elected and currently enjoys a 2.2% following of the US population. PM Stephen Harper tweets to 2.5% of Canada, and in Europe, the leading songbirds are 10 Downing Street, with a 2.8% following, and Spain’s Ministry of the President, with 2.4%.  But the top tweeters in terms of population percentile are HH Sheikh Al Maktoum of the UAE (7.9%) and Jordan’s Queen Rania (7.8%). Will this  high level of SM engagement help these countries better manage the current demands for government reforms throughout the Arab world? Only time will tell. But it can’t hurt Egypt’s next president if he uses twiplomacy with his youthful constituency. 

So why isn’t the Swiss federal council (cabinet) tweeting? It doesn’t help that its president changes every year. Or that the seven members have to represent Switzerland’s major parties (5) and language (3) groups, although it takes a Masters in Swiss politics to distinguish between the conservative left and liberal right. The most recent cabinet reshuffle has narrowed the left-right party spectrum, but Swiss leadership is still powered by (and mired in) consensus building. Thus, they feel more comfortable presenting their views in the carefully controlled environment of their multiple government websites. President-for-a-year Micheline Calmy-Rey recently gave her ‘state of the union’ address on her Facebook profile in French and Italian. But it only hit the news feeds of 1,930 fans, compared to 89,660 fans for Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg, who, unlike Calmy-Rey, also has his own blog.

Government leaders attract significant followings in social media with distinctive identities and transparent, interactive communication on all SM platforms. But although the Swiss made Nielsen’s top ten list last year for use of social media, their leadership is barely there.

This week, the NCCR democracy barometer (DB) issued a press release entitled: “Denmark, Finland, and Belgium have the best democracies”. But their media department knew they’d get more press by taking a shot at Switzerland with: “Swiss democracy unexceptional compared to other countries”, a news release quickly picked up by online media hungry for blood. They also shifted the focus to Switzerland’s unremarkable 14th position among 30 countries in a 1995-2005 study. Yes, the only apple democracy (direct) among the orange (representational) and pear (socialist) versions studied has been shot down as unexceptional by a Swiss government-funded (CHF 7.5 mio) scientific research institution. Although the release ended by congratulating Switzerland for making ‘striking’ progress over the 11 year study to achieve 9th position by 2005, it’s the ‘unexceptional’ label that has reverberated throughout the media.

We Swiss are used to seeing our country ranked at or near the top of lists that compare it to other countries for governance (no. 2 in the Anholt NBI), image quality and strength (no. 5 in the Country Brand Index) or global competitiveness (no. 1 in the World Economic Forum’s GCI). So, as Mark Butcher of World Radio Switzerland said this morning, DB’s demotion came as a shock. How could this be?

Well, Marc Bühlmann, co-leader of the DB, explained it all in his halting English radio interview. Of the nine indicators that the DB looked at, he says Switzerland scored low on citizen participation and political funding transparency. Swiss voter turnout is 38-56% on their 3-4 annual referendums. And the Swiss National council, which receives no public funding, regularly votes down initiatives aiming to reveal private funding sources.  But a deeper analysis of these two charges might help restore some shine to the Swiss apple that is acknowledged as the world’s only true direct democracy.

Not only is Swiss voter turnout one of the lowest in Europe, but DB co-leader Wolfgang Bertel is quoted in a UK direct democracy blog as saying that “at the moment there is an unintentional bias towards the participation of well-educated, older, high-income males.” Presumably this ‘moment’ was in 2005 when his DB study ended, because today that take on what low Swiss turnout indicates hardly applies. According to the IDEA in their 2008 Direct Democracy Handbook, “direct democracy demands from citizens a relatively high level of knowledge of issues that are sometimes complex. Concerns are often expressed that voters may not always have the capacity or information to make well-informed decisions about the issue at stake, and instead could make ill-considered decisions based on partial knowledge of an issue or the emotion of a campaign…”

And indeed, emotional issues like minaret bans and expulsion of foreign criminals do get bigger voter turnouts. As for being well-off, Switzerland makes no apologies for having the world’s fifth highest per capita income.  However, women are still making a poor showing at the polls. In a FORS report on Swiss voting patterns which telephone-sampled 4392 Swiss voters in 2007, 43% were women vs 55% men (2% declined to specify, apparently.) One would expect that winning voting rights as late as 1971 would cause women to exercise them more vigorously! Perhaps they delegate this task to their husbands, since women continue to gain representation in Swiss government.  As of 2010, 4 of Switzerland’s 7-member cabinet are women, as well as 29% of the Swiss parliament – versus 17% of the US congress, for example.

In fact, it’s the more liberal French-speaking cantons who pull down voter turnout averages in Switzerland, (as shown in this map of the minaret ban results), perhaps because most of the referendums are initiated by the German-speaking majority! But a low voter turnout can also indicate that the Swiss are quite content (8 out of 10 according to the ISO Public’s latest happiness survey) to know that they have the potential right to directly influence their laws, and only vote referendums when their personal interests are involved. This knowledge can also act as a quality control on lawmaking. As Bruno Kaufmann, president of IRI Europe, notes: “citizens are entitled to put almost every law decided by their representatives to a general vote – if they want…In 96 out of 100 cases, no such referendum is triggered, because the parliamentary process enjoys a very high level of legitimacy. That is because the elected lawmakers know that their work will be seriously checked by the public, so do a very good job indeed. (italics mine).”

While many Swiss national council members are fighting for funding transparency, it is lamentable that this initiative is consistently voted down by parliament. Obviously we need a referendum to force their hands!  But it’s worth noting that parties in Sweden also don’t have to reveal their funding sources. Yet Sweden ranks higher in transparency on the DB (click on their spider graph to enlarge) and, like the other Scandinavian states, makes the top 6 of a DB ranking that seems to equate good democracy with the Nordic welfare state model. Furthermore, apart from the 7-member federal council, the 200 Swiss parliamentarians serve the government from their home constituencies and all need ‘day jobs’ to survive. So the whole system, once again, is not comparable to the rest of Europe.

Simply put, comparing Switzerland’s direct democracy to representational or social democracies is like comparing oranges to apples or pears. Like any political system, it has its flaws, but Swiss direct democracy is far from unexceptional, or it would not have been rated tops for governance by the 20,000 interviewees of the Anholt Nation Branding Index for the past few years.

Nor would MEP Daniel Hannan have told the EU parliament that they should adopt Switzerland’s system of direct democracy!

Today, the euro hit its lowest point in history against the Swiss franc, making it unlikely that Switzerland will join the European Union anytime soon. A March poll showed that a narrow 52% majority still oppose Swiss EU membership, giving supporters hope for membership within five years. But after this week’s 750 billion euro rescue of its PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain), the EU is hardly the kind of ‘country’ club that attracts high worth members like the Swiss.

Back in 1997, the EU set lofty standards for membership: a 60% limit on government debt to GDP ratio, and a 4% limit on the deficit. In the vlogbrothers’ four minute debt crisis primer, we learn that fancy pants governments are smart to acquire debt cheaply to stimulate economic growth as long as the debt is sustainable. But in the financial meltdown of 2008, it no longer was by a critical mass of debtors. Now most EU members have ratios and deficits above membership limits. Greece, the first to get into big trouble, has a ratio of 124.9% and a deficit of 9.3% (some sources quote up to 12%). The European Commission’s 2010 forecast puts Italy second with 119%, while the U.K. has a deficit rivaling Greece. However, these numbers, which don’t take into account the PIIGS bailout, could get worse.

Where, considering the EU members’ own impressive debt burdens, is all this bailout money coming from? The IMF will cover 250b euros, much to the ire of USA taxpayers, whose share will be 17%. Even Switzerland will contribute 4b euro through the IMF. But the banks are also stepping up. Oh yes, the very culprits behind the cheap interest loans that got the PIIGS into trouble are now helping to keep them afloat so they won’t default on those cheap interest loans. For example, Germany’s banks are protecting their 34.4b euro investment in Greece with an 8.1b contribution, over a third of the 22.4b that Angela Merkel has grudgingly approved to compensate for what Prime Minister George Papandreou calls ‘corruption at all levels’. So the 5% deficit and 78% debt the Germans budgeted for 2010 may well go up. No wonder Angela is angry.

It’s hard to see how Switzerland and Norway, the last EU holdouts in Western Europe, would have benefited from joining a club whose members have seen 20-30% increases in their debt burdens since 2007. Meanwhile, Switzerland’s debt ratio has remained stable around 40%, and it actually posted a budget surplus last year.  Given that the OECD expects total developed country debt to exceed 100% of GDP in 2011, Switzerland can anticipate ever more pressure from its finance and trade partners to help bail out their unsustainable debt club members.

Moammar Gaddafi has been called many things, from the sublime to the ridiculous, in his record-breaking 40 year reign over Libya : the Colonel, Brother Leader, Keeper of Arab Nationalism, African King of Kings, Mad Dog of the Middle East, Ruthless Dictator, Terrorist Financier, Flakey Barbarian, even Fashion King. (Based on his website speeches, add Terminal Bore to the list. Hard to think of another head of state who takes longer or mumbles more when verbalizing his thoughts.)

Now 50,000 angry Swiss have taken name-calling to a new level on three Facebook pages they created just for him: Gaddafi – Staatsfeind Nr. 1 (State Enemy Nr. 1), Ich könnte Muammer al-Gaddafi pausenlos die Fresse polieren (I could smash Gaddafi’s face in non-stop), and the 21,000-strong Gaddafi, steck dir  deinen Dschihad in den ….. (stick your jihad up your…).

Swiss Facebook users, unlike their government, are done with polite diplomacy as a response to Gaddafi’s ongoing attacks, which began in July 2008 when Geneva police arrested and jailed Hannibal Gaddafi and his pregnant wife Aline for allegedly roughing up a couple of their domestic staff. Brother leader Gaddafi immediately announced a series of reprisals against the Swiss, including withdrawal of $5 billion from Swiss banks, erratic oil embargoes, and visa denials for Swiss businessmen in Libya which culminated this February with ABB director Max Göldi’s four month imprisonment for visa violations.

Since 2001, Hannibal has had five run-ins with police in Italy, France and England. So why has his father singled out Switzerland for retribution? Perhaps it’s because Hannibal and ex-model wife Aline ended up in jail instead of a maternity ward when they came to Switzerland in July 2008 to have their baby. Or because Gaddafi, per his 2009 interview with Larry King, felt he wasn’t properly rewarded for paying off the Lockerbie victims and needed a harmless punching bag.

Italy’s 35% share of Libyan oil exports, compared to Switzerland’s mere 5%, partly explains Italy’s immunity from Gaddafi’s wrath. So does his deal with hand-kissing Berlusconi, who agreed to pay Libya $5 billion to put an end to all colonial era disputes and gain Libya’s help in stemming the tide of illegal African immigrants. And Sarkozy not only warmly welcomed Gaddafi to France in 2007, but arranged for an EU payout to the families of 463 children that Libya claimed were infected with HIV by five Bulgarian nuns and a Palestinian doctor in 1999.  “If we don’t welcome countries that are starting to take the path of respectability,” said Sarkozy, referring to the 2007 release of the six medical workers, “what can we say to those that leave that path?”

Maybe Gaddafi also hoped his attacks on Swiss sovereignty would endear him to his new hero, Barack Obama, since the USA has been doing the same to get American tax money out of Swiss banks. Moammar even dreamed of heading up his own USA (United States of Africa) someday, starting with an unprecedented second term as head of the African Union this year. But his 96 minute diatribe to the September UN General Assembly, in which he demanded a staggering $7.7 trillion indemnity from the UN for malfeasance in Africa, fell on derisive ears.

With nothing to offer the African Union but himself, Gaddafi lost his bid for re-election.

So it’s back in the ring with the Swiss, who have thus far lost every round to Gaddafi’s below the belt punches. If the Swiss government wants to get off the ropes, it needs to swop briefcases for boxing briefs and stop pulling its punches, just like its Facebook citizenry!

Basler icons made happy and sad headlines in Switzerland last week.  Happy was the 100th anniversary of the Basel Fasnacht as an officially organized event (although disorganized Basel carnivals date back to the 16th century!). Sad was the death of one of the most significant art dealers of the 20th century, Ernst Beyeler (1921-2010).

I finally attended my first Fasnacht in 2008, when I had the daunting pleasure of joining my cousin’s clique, Verschubblete, for the 4 am Morgenstreich. It kicks off with a shutdown of city lights. Then, thousands of squeeky piccolos and rapping drums rend the frosty pre-dawn air as hundreds of huge lanterns start rolling through the crowded streets. Clique members follow in colorful oversized masks and costumes that hide bulky winter underclothes, fortifying themselves with periodic stops for brown flour soup, onion tarts, carroway pretzels, and Basler beer.

Fasnacht is actually a huge political protest in a jovial carnival atmosphere. Each clique picks on its favorite peeve and satirizes it. The watching hoards have never been counted but, according to Fasnacht Comite President Felix Rudolf von Rohr, they’re responsible for a Fasnacht week expenditure of CHF 30 million and a CHF 1 million clean up afterwards!

Ernst Beyeler’s laudable life ended the same day as this year’s Fasnacht. He made his start in 1945 with a Basel art and antiquarian bookshop, converting it into an art gallery with a growing trade in works by important 20th century modernists. But his really big breaks came in the late 1950’s, with the purchase of hundreds of works from the estate of Pittsburg collector David Thompson, and in 1966 when he left Picasso’s Mougins studio with 26 works.

Beyeler was responsible for enriching the collections of both public and private Swiss museums, and he also helped found the annual Basel Art fair, one of the world’s biggest draws for contemporary art. In 1982 he created the Beyeler foundation with his wife Hildy, and in 1997 they opened the foundation’s museum with the support of the Basel government.

Beyeler’s collection was valued last year at CHF 2 billion. But its trademark, Giacometti’s Walking Man II, may not be accurately reflected in that figure. Walking Man I, reputedly the only life-time cast of six that is in private hands, sold last month for $104 million.

Coincidentally, my father would have celebrated his 90th birthday last week. He was a devout Fasnachter, first as a clique piccolo player, then as an Ausland Schweizer (Swiss abroad) coming back to see who was being poked fun at. But last year, shortly before we marched in costume down Basel’s lantern-lit streets, we tipped his ashes into the Rhine for one last swim down the playground of his youth.

According to various and sundry advocates of minority rights, there has been an unprecedented rise of xenophobia throughout Europe. Proof cited includes an increase in hate crimes, job and housing discrimination, and denial of religious rights  - such as the minaret ban in Switzerland.  U.K. MP Denis MacShane calls the ban ‘vicious xenophobia’, and in their report, “The 2008 Hate Crime Survey”, Human Rights First (HRF) warns this may lead to “a climate of increased racism. If the climate of hatred rises, then racist violence and hate crimes tend to ascend too.”

The HRF report covers the 56 OSCE countries. However, the main transgressors are countries whose persecuted minorities are fleeing to Western Europe.  France and Germany actually reported a 20-23% decrease in hate crimes between 2007 and 2008, while the U.K. had a modest increase of 3.7%. As for Switzerland, which doesn’t keep statistics since few such acts result in punishable crimes, HRF managed to find seven instances of aggression against asylum seekers, two of which were attacks on buildings where they were being housed.

On the other side we have the Swiss majority, whose motivation for any possible xenophobic tendencies is ignored. Can majorities never be victimized by minorities, then? The Swiss don’t think so, and find a correlation between their 70.8% foreign prison population and an increase in burglary, rape, and muggings. Thus the Swiss right wing party, SVP, mounted a campaign – to intense negative media attention – against a 2009 referendum allowing immigration from newer EU members like Romania and Bulgaria. The passage of the referendum in 2009 by a 59.7% majority, however, was barely noticed. The proposed minaret ban referendum got the press going again, and when it passed, charges of xenophobia and related crimes against humanity flew fast and hard. Is it any wonder that an increasing majority of Swiss feel their rights are ignored and invalidated?

Maybe human rights advocates fixate on minorities to guard against any repetition of the horrific genocides of the past. But ignoring the rights of the majority will only increase their feelings of persecution and encourage more nationalistic manifestations like the minaret ban.

Last year, in a recessionary cost-saving measure, one of Switzerland’s most generous employers saved over CHF 200,000 by cutting off free coffee and the associated illegal export of Nespresso’s ‘heavenly’ pod machine capsules to employees’ homes.

The company had hoped to stop such ‘exports’ by installing pod machines that were only sold to companies in Switzerland.  But enterprising exporters simply purchased the machines online from other countries, and their supposed at work consumption of 12 cups per day continued unabated.

Free or subsidized coffee is a company fixture in Switzerland, so staff become very indignant when their coffee rights are denied.  Even a Harris Interactive poll of US workers last year found that 80% feel more valued if their company offers free hot beverages, and 79% of coffee drinkers said it made them more productive. However, the Harris poll also found that only 12% of US employees get free specialty coffee like Nespresso at work. 52% have to make do with coffee machines that use the same old beans for every cup.  Pod coffee machines seem to be more of a Swiss company phenomenon, and small wonder – Nespresso is the hottest brand of Switzerland’s third largest company, Nestle.

My own employer acknowledges coffee rights, too. But instead of colorful, climate-changing little aluminum coffee capsules, our machines eat coffee beans. True, it’s not as much fun as choosing your favorite color and/or flavor each time you go for a coffee (and pocketing a few as you leave), but it’s certainly more ecologically and economically correct.  Since Nestle would make more money if the illegal export of company-priced coffee doses were stopped, they should welcome my call to end company use of Nespresso pod machines – what else!

Most of the  50+ critical commentaries (so far) under Newsweek’s tabloid-style report on The End of Switzerland this week missed the hidden agenda behind the right (dis)honorable MP Denis MacShane’s unsympathetic ‘obituary’. When asked in a February 8^th interview on World Radio Switzerland (WRS) how Switzerland can rise from the grave he’s dug for it, MacShane recommended uniting its liberal factions in parliament in hopes of getting Switzerland into the EU over the objections of its ‘viciously xenophobic’ population. Nevermind that this would effectively end the ‘beacon of neutrality’ status MacShane berates Switzerland for damaging with the minaret ban. But I’ll deal with his article’s overt intention here and the covert in a later post.

MacShane told WRS that during his skiing holidays he’s noticed that the Switzerland he knew as a pampered guest worker in the 1980’s is no longer the land of milk and honey. He blames this on weak government. If so, then he and his Laborites had better resign, because today’s UK compares badly with the one I knew 30 years ago. If our cities are grubby, then theirs are filthy. If our trains are chronically late, then theirs are chronically canceled. If our roads are in constant repair, then theirs are in constant disrepair.

But let’s drop the hyperbole and assume there is quality loss, at least compared to thirty years ago. So what changes could account for this? Our government doesn’t have any less influence over the outcome of referendums than in the past, so I don’t buy that argument. How about population pressure? Switzerland houses 7.7 million souls, 1.4 million more than when MacShane lived here, and projections are it will grow to 8.35 million by 2030. But Switzerland’s birth rate has been below replacement rates since 1972. Part of the growth is a longer life span, but so is immigration.  1.7 million foreigners make up 23% of Switzerland’s population. This is more than any other European country except tiny Luxembourg. Pretty hard to believe that many foreigners would voluntarily stay in a viciously xenophobic country.

If our cities seem a little grubbier than in 1980, maybe it’s because some of our immigrants come from countries where people don’t worry about littering or relieving themselves in the streets. Likewise, it’s the trains’ night-time roving pickpockets and central station loiterers that are a problem, not punctuality. I’ve only experienced a few 5-10 minute delays in the past year, so I’m not complaining. Nor are the Swiss, who travel by rail more than any other country in the world! Of course, another reason the Swiss like their trains so much is because their roads are so heavily used and under frequent repair. Today, 41% more Swiss-registered vehicles pound down our four lane highways (limited by the need of precious land for dense housing projects which make cranes a permanent skyline fixture) than twenty years ago. In addition, 216,000 German and French residents drive in to work daily, while heavy trucks lumber through to northern or southern Europe because our splendid tunnels and token road tax make it shorter and cheaper than going through France.

So yes, we are feeling the effects of ever more bees swarming to enjoy (and contribute to) the wonderful honey of life in our Swiss hive. But at no. 9 on the Very High list of the UNDP’s Human Development Index (UK is no. 21), we’re about as far from the end of Swiss quality as you are from reality, Mr. MacShane.