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Britain Is World's 7th Most Stable and Prosperous Nation; US at 22nd
The United Kingdom has been ranked as one of the most stable and prosperous countries in the world, beating the United States, France and even Switzerland in a global assessment of every nation's achievements and standards.
A one-year investigation and analysis of 235 countries and dependent territories has put the UK joint seventh in the premier league of nations. The top ten comprise also the Vatican, Sweden, Luxembourg, Monaco, Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic.
The US lies 22nd and Switzerland, normally associated with wealth and untouchable stability, is rated 17th, losing points in the assessment of its social achievements.
The bottom ten, surprisingly, do not include Iraq. They are listed as Gaza and the West Bank, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
The UK received high marks despite the deployment of combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, the continuing threat from home-grown terrorists and the collapse of the Northern Rock bank.
The global check on every country recognized as an individual state or territory by the United Nations was carried out by Jane's Information Group and is published today.
Christian Le Mière, managing editor of Jane's Country Risk, which compiled the ratings, said: "The UK is a very stable country. But the top 20 or 30 countries are all stable. There are terrorist groups in the UK but there are effective security forces to deal with them. We took the July 7 bombings into account but the UK still came out very well."
He acknowledged that it was a little unfair to put the Vatican at the top because it did not face the sort of threats and economic pressures of other countries. But under the rating system, which took into account each nation's political structures, social and economic trends, military and security risks and external relations, the Vatican state scored an average of 99 out of 100. Sweden and Luxembourg were also rated 99, with the UK not far off, with an average of 97, but scoring 100 for its politics, economics and external relations.
Mr Le Mière said that the US had fallen down the scale, although it still scored an average of 93 out of 100, partly because of the proliferation of small arms owned by Americans and the threat to the population posed by the flow of drugs from across the Mexican border.
He explained that Iraq had managed to escape the ignominy of being in the bottom ten because, despite "extremely high levels of violence", it had a "relatively stable Government" that controlled a significant area of the country and had good economic prospects. "Unlike Afghanistan, where - despite the presence of more than 40,000 foreign troops - the Government exercises poor control over large parts of the country and where 50 per cent of the economy is dependent on the opium trade," he said.
Mr Le Mière gave warning of worrying trends in Africa where, he said, there was likely to be a struggle for resources. He added that it was the first time that a rating system for countries had been carried out on such a grand scale. The Jane's system differed from government assessments of country risk because it was based entirely on objective analysis, "with no politicisation of the intelligence", he said.
Most stable:
Every country has been given a risk rating out of 100 for all-round stablilty
1. Vatican 99
2. Sweden 99
3. Luxembourg 99
4. Monaco 98
5. Gibraltar 98
6. San Marino 98
7. Liechtenstein 97
8. United Kingdom 97
9. The Netherlands 97
10. Irish Republic 97
US: 22nd equal 93
Most unstable:
Central African Republic 39
Democratic Congo 38
Chad 38
Zimbabwe 38
Haiti 38
Ivory Coast 36
Afghanistan 36
Sudan 35
Somalia 29
Gaza and West Bank 27
Iraq: 10th equal from bottom, with 44 points.
Source: Janes Information Services
© 2008 The Times Online
15 Comments so far
Show AllGood for the Brits. It seems the Northern Ireland problem has gone away with prosperity and a lot of effort on all sides.
They have a lot of work to do before the North Sea oil is depleted if they want to keep the prosperity part. They are gradually ramping up conservation, wind and tidal sources, and considering nuclear. They are way behind France (nuclear) and Germany (renewables) but way out in front of the US (nothing).
They need to say more about what indicators went into this measure. I can't imagine that the UK is as high as it is. The UK is almost in as bad a shape as the US. Their economy is in trouble, the Iraq war is costing them vast sums of money, they have high poverty rates, they have high incarceration rates, they are not able to meet their commitments to the Kyoto protocol, etc. These are off the top of my head.
"There are terrorist groups in the UK but there are effective security forces to deal with them. We took the July 7 bombings into account but the UK still came out very well."
Stikes me that if bombing occurred and many people died from 'terrorists' then the security forces cannot be that effective, can they? Especially when the security forces have killed an innocent by mistake?
I wonder what rating the UK and US will get in 5 years time.
I remember when Canada used to top this list. Then we signed a Free Trade agreement.
Given how difficult it will be for our current type of societal structure to adjust to the coming economic collapse, one might righty suppose our relative social stability is in grave danger.
Perpare for things to get wierd ugly fast.
Before you Brits get all giddy about this ranking, you'd better look at both your personal and governmental debt situations. Tony Bliar's boom economy is built on a mountain of debt and the US-based economic crisis is just starting to hit the Islands. You will sink in a sea of your own shit, just as we are. See you on the unemployment lines.
Huzzah! Huzzah! The earth is burning and the latest poll says "Look how great and stable we are!" Pfft! Stupid humans, couldn't get a priority right even if they had a brain.
We'll see how stable the UK is when the sands blow endlessly over the Midlands.
TJ
and they have lousy weather.................
With the possible exception of the Vatican, the most stable countries are rich thanks to their liberal governments, and the most unstable are poor because of their conservative governments.
Actually from the top 10 list one would conclude that the most stable countries are tiny European principalties that provides tax havens for rich poeple.
Nobody can say George did nothing for us.
It makes sense the UK would wallop the U.S. I personally point out the UK's National Health Service (NHS), the country's biggest employer and the free government-provided medical system for anyone who needs it. That makes for a healthy, prosperous British family that doesn't have to worry about medical bills or bankruptcy. I think you can judge a country's stability and prosperity just by checking out the health and living standards of its citizens.
The U.S. at 22! Sad but true. Aren't we really just a third-world country with a few pockets of insanely rich people? "Superpower," "greatest country on earth," nationalist blah blah slogans that have no real meaning and probably aren't true. Look past the BS.
Stability equals stagnation. Is stability the goal or progress? I guess if you improve exponentially, then you rank last.
TJ March, I don't know who rattled your cage, because as a "Brit", the only thing which makes me giddy, is the people who believe this crock of s--t. Most of us in the UK are switched on enough to know, that most of our wealth belongs to 1% of the population, and is created in the City of London. The people who are the recipients of this wealth, mostly live offshore and do not pay any taxes, leaving the other 99% to shoulder their problem.
Yes, we do have a national health service, but it is not modern, and most new units are funded by charitable donations, probably given by the poorest people - another form of taxation, albeit voluntary.
Yes, we have lousy weather, but we also have global warming, largely caused in the past by you Yanks, so our temperatures are going to increase - on the downside, we will have more floods and hurricanes.
Tony Bliar, was a right wing neo-socialist, populist Chameleon, who was a disgrace to the Labour party. He presided over supposedly, one of the best economic periods we have ever had, with record breaking low inflation. How do you get record breaking low inflation? Well, you take out all the things which might harm the inflation rate, like property prices, fuel bulls, council tax, petrol (gasoline) now at £5.00 ($10.00) a gallon. You also don't mention that 90% of the population haven't had a pay rise since 2000.
The healthy, prosperous British family, will have to be earning in excess of £50,000 ($100.000) a year to survive, but the reality is, that most people are on £11,000 - £18,000 per year, as employers find cheaper labour from Eastern Europe, to take the place of us "lazy" Brits.
We have 2.5 million unemployed, but that figure only includes those who are eligible. It discounts the people who are denied benefits after six months, or those who have been doing sporadic contract work. Most of our pension schemes are worthless, and the retirement age has been raised to 67.
I would say that we are pretty much in the same state as the US, and I don't know how we get a stability rating of 97/100.
This is absurd: "Iraq had managed to escape the ignominy of being in the bottom ten because, despite "extremely high levels of violence", it had a "relatively stable Government" that controlled a significant area of the country and had good economic prospects." Is this the Maliki government we're talking about here? Stable? It wouldn't last ten minutes without 150,000 American troops acting as an armed guard. Well, I guess that is one kind of stability. So I guess it will continue to be stable for another 100 years, if McCain has his way.