Christina Patterson: Look out - here come the new colonials

They come here. They take our jobs. They cook disgusting, smelly food and they don't even bother to learn our language. And now they want to tell us how to run our country. No, not Tower Hamlets, but the Costa Blanca, Spanish refuge of the sun-starved citizens of Essex or Kent.

The Brits have, of course, never been known for their linguistic aptitude, or for their instantaneous embrace of funny foreign ways. It wasn't integration that turned the map pink. But the empire has long gone. Our leaders might be keen to impose Western democracy on oil-rich nations in the Middle East, but we, on the whole, can't be arsed. Give us a pint, a bacon sarnie and enough rays to blast us lobster-pink and we're happy. Happy, that is, until now.

Yes, the Blanca Brits are on the march. Not back to Blighty (too cold, grey and diverse) but down to the town hall. They're on the march for justice. Fair's fair , but this isn't. They've thrown their money and their often considerable weight into their new home, and what do they get? Crap schools, apparently, poor infrastructure and mass corruption. It almost makes you pine for what you've left behind.

"On a basic level the town is dirty, the transport system poor, the administration chaotic and the political system corrupt," said Javea resident Tony Cabban in an interview this week. "A lot of Spaniards," he added "run for office to serve their own self-interest". The retired accountant from Tonbridge is one of more than 100 Brits standing for public office in the Spanish local and regional elections this week. Together, they hope to counter this politician-motivated-by-personal-ambition shock phenomenon.

Actually, the bigger shock, at least for some of them, has been to discover that the concrete monstrosities they call home - monstrosities which many bought "off plan" and for which great swaths of the Spanish countryside have been razed - are illegal. Properties built without planning permission, often on land designated as green belt, are being threatened with demolition or confiscation.

You can't blame them for being narked. You can't blame them for wanting a voice. But it might be an idea, before you try to shape the democratic process in another country, to try to stretch some of those estuary vowels into the mellifluous ones of your host country. It would, as my mother used to say, be a nice gesture.

When the egg and chips are down, we still, it seems, want to shape the world in our image. Essex exiles sign on a Spanish dotted line and expect their word-made-concrete to be a courtly code of honour. Second-homers from the Home Counties buying farmhouses in Tuscany expect Teutonic efficiency, and not the Kafkaesque maze of bureaucracy that can make the switching on of pre-connected utilities a feat worthy of beatification. Tourists encountering crime in Portugal - terrible crime in Portugal - expect legislation and policing to follow English models.

Well, guess what? It doesn't. As the wild swings of multi- culturalism and integration have taught us, different cultures are - well, different. In the old model of British colonialism, we didn't bother with the tiresome business of democracy and negotiation. No, waving guns and barking orders, we just chucked out the quaint chintz of local traditions and steamed ahead with our own. A seductively simple system which some of our own citizens - from Bradford, Brixton and Beeston - are keen to replicate.

The world has changed. Borders have shifted and collapsed. As we move to the great mongrel mix of the third millennium - and a challengingly rich kaleidoscope of cultures - we need new models and new rules. We need to find ways for immigrant communities to be democratically represented, but ones which respect the complexities of the host culture and its traditions. What we don't need is a new colonialism. And especially not one which repeats itself as farce.

How come Billie's so sane?

Well, I hope the Priory is ready. I hope it has its best psychiatrists on hand. I hope Billie Piper has health insurance - because she is clearly sick. Three years after the breakdown of her marriage to the ebullient Chris Evans, the pop star turned actress has said she will not request a penny of his estimated £30m fortune. It would be "disgusting". She has remained good friends with her ex-partner and is said to be "happy" for him in his planned marriage to golfer girlfriend Natasha Shishmanian. Happy? Piper, who has launched a TV career of astonishing versatility, doesn't understand the responsibilities of celebrity. Screw him for every penny. Weep to the tabloids. And, above all, however successful or rich you might be, make sure you moan.

* The lights are on, but there's nobody home. No, not a metaphor, but the stark, nay, luminous, reality in shops and offices across the land. The glaciers may be melting and the breadbowls of Africa turning to dust, but night and day (as Cole Porter wrote) the lights continue to blaze with brilliant splendour.

The keepers of these eternal flames can, when challenged, be a touch defensive. Rarely, however, as imaginatively as council officials in Midlothian. "Some lights - including some on timers - are left on during the winter months," said a spokesman for the council, "to protect potential intruders from fall hazards."

Under the Occupier's Liability (Scotland) Act, 1960, apparently, they have a "duty of care" to burglars and vandals. Quite right, too. Let's hope that Alex Salmond draws on all the powers of his precarious government to preserve this vital Scottish law.

c.patterson@independent.co.uk

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