Tuesday 12 August 2008

"British arrests soar 32% in Spain"

Time for some fun with numbers using the handy table at the end of this article:

British tourist visits to Spain = 17 million; Arrests = 2,032; Deaths = 1,591.

So that means only one-in-eight-thousand British tourists gets arrested (and one-in-eleven-thousand dies, whether of old age is not stated).

One-in-eight-thousand? What's the big fuss? Unfortunately there is no comparative for the previous year's visits, so we can't tell whether the arrests-per-tourist rate is up, down or stable.

And either French police are far more lenient on the Brits (highly unlikely), or the low arrest rate of one-in-a-hundred-thousand for visitors to France is because snobs go to France and chavs go to Spain.

3 comments:

Snafu said...

I can't ever imagine the BBC running with a headline "Foreign arrests in the UK rise 32%".

Simon Fawthrop said...

yes snafu, but if it did rise 32% the Daily Mail would be all over it.

Whilst I agree that it is "only" one in eight thousand it is still embarrasing that 2,032 Brits (English?)don't know how to behave when they go in to someone else's house.

Snafu said...
This comment has been removed by the author.