So does a tight upper lip - although that has certainly not been in evidence from the British public over news of the deal between WH Smith and Penguin to remove the overseas travel guides of any other publisher from the shelves at its 265 airport and travel outlets. This will unfairly discriminate against publishers such as Lonely Planet, Time Out, Bradt, Michelin, The AA and Frommers, to name but a few.
The outcry over the protectionist move has prompted scores of critical reports in national newspapers from The Daily Mail to The Independent to The Times plus coverage on BBC Radio 4 and many other stations.
It inspired Michael Palin - a British institution if ever there was one - to tell The Guardian that WH Smith's move is an "unacceptable restriction of traveller's choice" and Margaret Drabble - another national treasure - to inform Penguin it "should be ashamed".
So, are the top lips of John Duhigg, Managing Director, Penguin Travel,
and Kate Swann, Chief Executive, WH Smith PLC, quivering? They should be, since the reputation of these two great British companies may have been irreparably damaged by the unfair monopoly they have concocted.
Penguin. Isn't that the much-loved historic British publisher that began the paperback revolution in 1935, making available a range of affordable contemporary fiction to the British public for the first time? Didn't many of us grow up on Puffins and Penguin Classics?
WH Smith. Isn't that the respected British bookseller founded in 1792 and affectionately known as 'Smith's', whose WH Smith Literary Award has since 1959 been one of the most well-regarded and wide-ranging of literary prizes, with its list of winners including such luminaries as Seamus Heaney, John Fowles, Philip Larkin and Doris Lessing?
We Brits hate to see an underdog but with this WH Smith-Penguin deal, an entire underclass of them - British guidebook publishers - has been created.
Which is why the British Guild of Travel Writers is writing to the Office of Fair Trading on the issue and why in this case, the British bulldog is showing its teeth. Make your consumer choice. Join us by refusing to buy your next guidebook from WH Smith…
Sarah Monaghan, Press and PR Co-ordinator, British Guild of Travel Writers
16 June 2009
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A recent survey for The Telegraph found that the British sense of identity depends "on shared values and institutions rather than on nostalgia for warm beer or cricket". Terms such as "fair play, decency and tolerance" typify the British character apparently.
