IT’S one of the hot topics of the moment in America and parts of the Continent: why is Britain so phenomenally expensive and why on earth do Britons put up with it? So exercised have tourists and other visitors to Britain become that they have started an internet blog on the subject and the “Basil Fawlty factor” that some hold to be responsible.

Britain’s rip-off prices were confirmed last week by a Sunday Times survey that found we are indeed being overcharged for a wide range of everyday products and services.

Whether it is a meal out, a trip to the cinema or a weekend in the country, in Britain it typically costs about 30% more than in comparable countries. Our train fares are four times the global average.

But what perplexes tourists is not British prices per se but the reasons for them. Often travelling from countries where standards of living and service are higher, they can’t understand it.

Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, said: “England is not the wealthiest country in the world but it has some of the most outrageous prices. It’s an overcrowded country with high property prices, but it doesn’t explain why people have to pay so much.”

Cowen has prompted a lively internet debate on the subject on his economics blog, Marginal Revolution, under the heading: “Why is the UK so expensive?”

“It amazes me how much more things cost there than here in California,” writes one contributor. “What I’m trying to understand is why. I realize that some things like gasoline cost more in the UK due to taxes. But for other things it appears that prices in the UK are 40% to 50% higher.”

It is not just the goods and services bought by tourists that are sold at premium prices. From the cost of a mobile phone call to downloading a music track on iTunes or ordering a cup of coffee in a cafe, Britain regularly tops the world league table of the most expensive countries.

Our transport costs are also among the highest. A return rail ticket from London to Manchester for travel before 9.30am costs £202, or £57.10 after 9.30am, compared with £27.42 for a train journey of a similar distance between Paris and Dijon. And taxi costs in London are almost double those in Paris.

A survey on prices and earnings around the world published this month by the banking group UBS found that a 120-mile train journey in Britain was 65% more expensive than any other similar train journey in the world.

Although London is well known for its spiralling prices, the problem is far from contained there. Anyone heading for the seaside is likely to find accommodation and food prices to rival the capital’s.

In Padstow, Cornwall, for example, it costs about £600 to rent a cottage for four for the week. A meal in a family restaurant starts at around £25 a head and to eat somewhere fashionable, such as Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant, you can expect to pay £65 per head for a set meal, and with the cheapest starter, mackerel stuffed with masala paste, costing £9.50.

Becky Caulford, 26, who is from Toronto and on a round-the-world trip, said: “I’ve come here after visiting New Zealand, Australia, southeast Asia, and then London, so I’m pretty broke, and I just really didn’t expect things to cost so much.

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