The British Expats

(Originally posted on Mixi and MySpace on Thursday, December 14th, 2006)

I found this article the other day, pretty interesting stuff. Apparently almost 10% of British people live permanently overseas although this figure is hidden by an equal number of people immigrating to the UK and replacing them, so the population remains the same.

The reasons people leave the UK to live elsewhere are various - bad weather, long working hours (though not compared with Japan of course!), high property prices, and so on - but perhaps the biggest factor is that everything is so expensive there. With 17.5% consumer tax, excessive duty on cigarettes and alcohol, and international companies charging Brits more than other Europeans for their products it's hardly surprising the country is frequently referred to in the media as 'rip-off Britain'. And to think that Japan is still misperceived by British people as being an expensive country...