The talent drain

Good piece by Piers Morgan in today’s Daily Mail about the British talent doing well in America. He quotes an American film director saying our actors are more likely to be formally trained – and then, to America, for the big bucks. From The Wire (McNulty’s from Yorkshire) to Gossip Girl (Chuck Bass is from Hertfordshire), some the best known ‘American’ actors over there are Brits putting on an accent – it’s something of a phenomenon. But it’s not restricted just to acting. One of the most under-reported stories is the silent exodus of skilled Brits to countries with better state schools and safer streets. As I blogged a while back, Britain has repelled more of its high-skilled workers than any other G7 economy: or the Brits deemed to have high skills, 15% live overseas. That’s the highest in the developed world bar the famously itinerant Irish and Kiwis. We won’t hear so much about them: they’ll be police chiefs in Canada (there are 39