Immigrant, Foreigner, or Born Abroad?

The BBC has just done a survey of where people who were not born in the UK have come from. Sounds interesting! Today they have been trumpeting the results in news bulletins. However, they don't seem too sure of what these people represent or how to describe them.

Americans working for US military bases are included. I was surprised to hear this and wondered if it was true that 155,000 Americans had emigrated from the USA over the last 10 years! So too with Germans, until it was coyly announced that these were children of British service personnel.

The BBC doesn't seem to know the difference betweem Immigrants, Foreigners and those of us who were born abroad. Spike Milligan had this problem due to being born in India. He wasn't Indian! John McEnroe was born in Germany but I doubt many people think he is German. Many people who were involved in the Colonial service found themselves abandoned to the new strictures of the immigration rules. Large numbers of English people were born in India and Africa, without ever thinking they were Indian or African!

The trouble with all this politically correct interpretation is that it gives a totally meaningless value to the statistics! But the BBC is getting so stuck up a gumtree on this subject and really should allow themselves and their reporters to speak with Common Sense!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/born_abroad/countries/html/overview.stm

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