HAVE expat Brits become the people everyone loves to hate in Britain? I get the impression that everyone from the government downwards just loves to criticise expat Brits. The British government appeared to take delight in taking away cold weather payments from British pensioners living in Spain and now the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have called us “a wave of migrants, costing local health services a fortune, refusing to learn the language and not prepared to integrate.” The TUCstudy was aimed at banishing the myths about migration. But once again expats are in the firing line and I am getting rather bored with the whole thing. There is a general consensus of opinion in Britain that all expats drink gin and tonics all day next to their swimming pools and live a colonial sort of life. Well, Iconsider myself a British expat but I do speak the language, I do integrate and Ido not cost the Spanish National Health Service a penny. Infact Icontribute to it through my taxes. And what is more there are thousands of people just like me who work very hard to finance a better life in the sun. Then there are thousands of other expats who have worked all their life, contributed to the British state, and then have moved abroad to retire in the sun. They could have stayed in Britain but they elected to come to Spain. So leave us alone and let us enjoy our life in Spain. Obviously the British community in Spain has its faults but overall it is one that Spain is proud to have. Ask any Spaniard if he or she has any objection to the British community and they will reply “ofcourse not.”