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I am on holiday in Apulia, or the ‘heel’ of Italy. The South of Italy is widely considered to be much less prosperous than the North, in a similar way as the situation exists vice versus in the UK. However, I look around and it occurs to me that this ‘unfashionable’ region of a country less

apparently wealthy than my own, has a distinct lack of certain of the UKs current characteristics. The city centres are clean, busy, and empty or boarded up retail space in the centre (eg Bari, an unremarkable provincial coastal city) are non existent.

There are no potholes in the Italian streets. Everywhere, there are sundry public works being undertaken: maybe paving and pedestrianising a street, painting park benches, or clearing refuse from the streets. Graffiti is almost completely absent.

I travel on Italian public transport and am blown away by the quality, punctuality and cleanliness of the trains and buses. There are no gangs of bored young men wearing balaclavas, or ugly St George symbols meant to represent a political opinion.