Ian Cowie investigates why so many Britons want to leave the UK and retire overseas
Will the last person to leave the United Kingdom please switch off the lights? No, I am not talking about elections - result unknown at time of writing - but an earlier poll by Prudential. Britain's biggest insurer found that nearly a quarter of Britons approaching pension age say they aim to retire overseas. Almost half say they would like to do so but have not saved enough to fund what would be "the holiday of a lifetime". Spain is the most popular destination.
That tells us a great deal about how we see ourselves and our continental cousins. When it comes to quality of life, a rising proportion of Brits believe they would be better off overseas. While the rest of the population was voting this week on - among other things - Britain's proper place in Europe, the older generation has already decided. It's somewhere to send postcards to.
While their children struggle to earn a living under burgeoning bureaucracy and taxation, an older generation lucky enough to have benefited from decades of rising house and share prices can sit back and observe the decline of the United Kingdom from a shaded spot somewhere in the sun.
Can you blame them? Why sit in the rain in Solihull, say, worrying about soaring council tax bills when you could be in Seville? In retirement, you no longer need to be close to your work. Nor need you worry about income tax or social insurance costs, both of which tend to be higher on the Continent. For pensioners, the cost of accommodation and food and drink are far more important. All are cheaper over there.
But the big change in recent years has been improved access to international travel. Now that it is cheaper and quicker than ever to cross the Channel, more people are doing so. When my parents married half a century ago, they took their honeymoon in Edinburgh. Now people think nothing of stag nights that involve a trip to Prague.
The ability to get to the Continent and back quickly and cheaply is, paradoxically, particularly important for pensioners. Knowing that you could wake up in the morning with a worrying pain in your hip and be back in your doctor's surgery in Birmingham by the evening means it is not as big a deal to retire overseas as it was for earlier generations.
And, of course, the idea that medical care in our European Union neighbours' countries must be inferior to our own blessed National Health system is rather out of date.
A friend's father who suffered a heart attack after several years' happy retirement in rural France was amazed at the quality of the care he received. There were no awkward questions about obesity, alcohol intake, cigarette smoking or the fact that, against all the odds, he happened to be in his eighties. All of which may, apparently, be taken into account if you are unfortunate enough to need the NHS, despite having paid taxes for decades to fund it.
Similarly, anyone hoping their state pension will fund a comfortable retirement overseas may be in for a shock. Depending on where you go, your pension may be frozen at its level when you leave with none of the inflation-linkage enjoyed by those who remain at home or retire to other countries overseas.
The distinction between winners and losers is entirely arbitrary. Australia, the second most popular destination for emigrating pensioners, is among the countries where British state pensions are frozen; often at pitiful levels.
We alsotell how the Department for Work and Pensions is pursuing an old soldier, who dared to retire to South Africa, for £13,000 they claim they overpaid him. Bill Kirkham, a former Royal Marine, is among nearly 14,000 British pensioners abroad sent "debt notices" last year.
It all seems very strange but the moral is plain enough. If you want your retirement to live up to the "holiday of a lifetime" tag, you had better start saving for it sooner rather than later. Otherwise, the final phase of your life could be about as much fun as a wet weekend in Skegness. Except it might drag on for decades.