Why Britain is, still, the world capital of decency

In the Wall Street Journal today there is a wonderful piece by an American tourist struck by the level of friendliness and civility he found amongst the British people. He starts with our tube etiquette:

‘Three times in the space of 24 hours young men offered their subway seats to my wife, who is neither elderly nor pregnant. They seemed to do this out of a sense that giving up one’s seat to a person at least one generation older was the sort of thing gentlemen did, even though not one of them fit the narrow technical definition of a gentleman. One guy looked like a gangster.’

‘At the Kensington High Street tube station, we had trouble figuring out the Oyster Card transit payment system. A very young Underground employee, noticing our confusion, offered to insert the coins for us. This sort of thing never happens in New York, where being perplexed is viewed as a sign of mental impairment.