Brain drain capital of the world
As I have been observing for some considerable time now – ambitious Brits are leaving and taking their skills elsewhere.
Today’s Sunday Times interviews several who have done so. 41-year old Simon Needham now runs his advertising company, Attik, in Los Angeles. He is quoted saying
I absolutely love it here. It’s sad that I miss England so little, but I don’t. On my last trip to London, I saw about eight road-rage incidents during a one-hour drive. People are angry. It’s only now I know just how hard it is to live there….. With the exchange rate right now, I can’t imagine there ever being a better time to leave Britain.
Road rage. Anger. And the wonders of the favourable exchange rate. How right he is!
And then there’s an interview with Nobel prize-winning British chemist Sir Harry Kroto (who discovered the “Buckyball”, the versatile form of carbon shaped like a football). He’s left for the USA too. The ridiculous ageism, so rampant in the UK, is not nearly so prevalent Stateside. When Sir Harry turned 65 he had to retire from his position at Sussex University – so off he went to Florida State University. A big gain for the Americans and a huge loss to Blighty.
Not since the 1950s have Brits fled the UK in such numbers – now there are over a million highly qualified professionals who’ve gone. This is a massive brain drain.
Every day, Brits spend £122m buying overseas property, a figure forecast to almost double by 2012 from £44 billion a year to more than £80 billion. There is something really very seriously wrong with this country when, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research, more than 5m people born in the UK now live abroad, and their ranks are swelling. Let's not forget that they got their education, training and skills here. But they don't want to stay.
I ask, yet again, is anyone in Government the least bit interested in doing something to stop this haemorrhage of talent?
HelloAmericans
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In my opinion there is far too much hysteria about migration and immigration.They are part of the warp and woof of our society, always have been, always will be. No more so than mow in this age of globalisation.
The British have always gone abroad in search of greater opportunities. The greatest Empire in the history of the world was build by our aspirational forebears. Many flourished and built new societies, some failed and a goodly portion returned at some points in their life to live again in the country of their birth.
Today, distance means very little. America is eight hours away - and six to come back if you don't like it. You can go one day and return the next after a days work. Europe is there for the retirees. But the Middle East and Asia are also just a few hours away. You can go there to make your pile or to stay.
Emigration is not like when I left the UK in 1961. You went on the boat in those days. It was 12 days from Liverpool to Seattle. The weekend papers took three weeks to arrive by sea. Phone calls were prohibitive. I lived abroad for more than 16 years before I made my first overseas call. There was no satellite TV.
You went abroad and were forced to integrate into the new society. That doesn't happen today. Brits abroad today are often as attached to Blighty as Pakistanis in the UK to their homeland. They can blog and keep in contact. Emigration today is very different. It is reversible and can often be like an extended gap year.
For myself, I returned after 37 years because I wanted my children to experience life in a place they could call home if necessary. I continue to work abroad on a part-time basis.
This great movement of peoples is a global phenomena and not something anyone can stop. We should though have a greater degree of scrutiny in who comes in and certainly should be more ruthless in removing those accused of crimes. Human rights legislation be damned. It is simply not our problem if a citizen of Algeria (say) is found guilty of a crime here could be subject to torture in his own country. 'If you can't do the time, don't do the time'.
So good luck in America. It is a land of opportunity if you handle it correctly. But you will miss Blightly and there is a one in three chance you will be back.
Comment by oldasiahand is correct when he states that Europe is for the retirees among us. Greece is a wonderful retirement destination especially Crete. The weather for most of the year is superb with lower humidity than home. The diet, and lungs filled with fresh air enable the body and mind to re-generate. Complaints such as rheumatism and arthritis, asthma and other breathing disorders improve the longer the sojourn on Crete.
No wonder that there is a growing population of resident British, Irish, Welsh and Scottish. We do not exactly blend in with the locals much of the time. But thank god we are British and not German. The Cretans let us get away with many sins. Yet, it seems there is a 7 year itch; to move on, or back to old Blighty. In fact, I wish a few more would go back to their origins and take the unwholesome baggage they brought with them in the first place.
Yes, we in this generation are no different to those who have gone before in the past 500 hundred years or so, when it comes to emigration from the motherland.
Why is it so many Brits in Crete think that in the process to move to Grece they only need to treat it as an outing to Butlins.