I'm based in the UK and it always strikes me as odd how difficult it appears to get BTC here at any decent price.

Fortunately I have an EUR account in Germany and SEPA transfers are easy (next day) from that to a EUR account in France (bitcoin-central.net) or Poland (MtGox).

EUR accounts are easy to set up and can be funded with GBP.

However could it be because the UK has such a large banking sector which may feel threatened by BTC in the long term that barriers are put in the way of BTC traders here? Why did Barclays shut down MtGox's GBP account last year?

Any ideas?