Robin Cook has slammed Britons going abroad this Christmas as unpatriotic.

Writing in his column for the Evening Standard, the former foreign secretary argued that those who left the country at Christmas were not to be trusted.

"I have always regarded it as unpatriotic to go abroad for Christmas," he said.

"Unfortunately, I once propounded my thesis that you cannot trust a man who leaves the country for Christmas to Sir Richard Wilson, the Cabinet secretary, at his last engagement before he left for Gatwick to do just that.

"I had never before heard my private secretary seized with a coughing fit loud enough to drown out the end of my sentence."

Cook argued that Britain was at its best during the Christmas period and people should want to stay.

"Why leave Britain when its people are at their nicest? For one weekend in the year, even strangers will say hello to you in the street," he said.

However it seems that the 1.8 million UK citizens who went abroad last year disagree with Cook, and many more are likely to chose the sun or ski slope over the UK this year as well.