My least favourite countries in the world

Every year during Easter Week I draw up a chart of my least favourite countries and distribute the list to close friends and relatives. I’ve been doing this for thirty years now and I’m sure it has proved helpful to those close to me. So sure, in fact, that I intend, from now on, to post the same chart here. I hope in time my hate list will come to be seen as a familiar herald of summer, like letters to the Times about the first cuckoo or Christian names given to children.

I never explain my reasoning: in most cases there is no need. And where there is need it is a case of pure, blind, prejudice. When I say “country” I dislike, sometimes I mean merely the government of that country, sometimes I mean the awful people who live in it and most usually I mean both.

This year’s is interesting, I think, for the newish arrival of many non-Muslim countries. I have put last year’s placings in brackets, so that you can see the trajectories. As for the definition of country, I have drawn on the 196 states properly recognised by the United Nations and United Kingdom Government (which of course means no Palestine).