Jeremy Clarkson in the Sunday Times (via my wife):

…I suspect the people who move from Britain to the States do so because they are interested in guns and murdering…

Notice The Times’s curious choice of online positioning for Mr Clarkson’s truly witty and insightful column, especially the location of that line in particular . . . directly opposite the photo of 11 year old Rhys Jones, who was shot and killed (hit by an apparently ”stray bullet”), not in, say, Houston, but outside of Liverpool:

Separately, The Times also tells us this morning:

…The teenage girl who is believed to have been at the centre of Rhys’s murder has already been questioned by police. She had lived with her parents and sisters in the Croxteth Park estate until the family moved this summer after shots were fired at their home…

Obviously, not all of those gun fanatics can manage to get U.S. visas, eh Mr Clarkson? 

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UPDATE: In the comments, Farfallina raises an issue that I hadn’t chosen to address initially, but I think I should: Mr Clarkson’s fascinating, basic premise on British expatriates being “failures” back in Britain.

We should bear in mind first the important distinction on expatriation that evidently totally eludes Mr Clarkson: moving within the EU technically no longer really rates as expatriation.  British citizens have as much right to live in, for example, Spain, as New Yorkers do in Florida.  However, as moving from the U.K. to the States still does constitute true expatriation, let’s focus instead on Mr Clarkson’s trenchant observations on those who make that move:

…What about America then? We imagine that the Brits living there are successful and bright, like David Beckham and, er, Kelly Brook. But mostly, I suspect the people who move from Britain to the States do so because they are interested in guns and murdering.

Twice I’ve bumped into expats while in America and both times they were wandering around in woods carrying preposterously large guns and wearing combat fatigues. One was chewing tobacco which, when combined with his broad Birmingham accent, made him appear to be the stupidest person in the world. He probably was.

The fact is, I’m afraid, that anyone who emigrates from Britain, no matter where they end up, is a bit of a dimwit…

As any Briton familiar with emigrating to the States without family ties has certainly noticed, obtaining a U.S. work permit usually requires one have either money to invest in a business, or certain desirable job skills. (Walking in via the southern land frontier is a separate issue.)  Both Mr Beckham and Ms Brook might be said to serve as examples of the filling of either one, or even both, of those requirements.  Similarly, while less high-profile of course, that Brummie Mr Clarkson disparages probably does so too.

Mr Clarkson clearly is not planning to make his own move there anytime soon.  However, if he were it might be useful for him to understand that while he himself currently may fall into the former, monied group, if money were suddenly to become tight it seems he won’t likely fit easily into the latter.  For insofar as we are aware, “lunkhead who drive car fast — varooooooom!” is not yet in great skills’ demand in the U.S.