As the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games draws ever nearer,
the sniffier end of the commentariat at the Maily
Telegraph is once again looking down its collective noses at
the number of foreign born competitors in Team GB, and bandying around the
overused and unnecessarily pejorative term “Plastic
Brits”. Yet they do not resort to such claims when the sport is Cricket,
and nor have they in the past.
Four of the current England team hail from South Africa,
including test skipper Andrew Strauss. Moreover, many past players and captains
were not born in England, including not just the obvious ones like Tony Greig,
but also Scot Mike Denness, Colin Cowdrey (born in Bangalore), Bob Woolmer
(also originally from India), Derek Pringle (Kenya) and Ted Dexter (Italy).
But this does not trouble the Tel, where horrified and suitably upstanding British readers are
told that 61 of the 542 members of Team GB were born outside the country. Fine,
so how many of these folks do not hold a British passport? Well, that number
would be zero, none, nil, zilch, nada. So there should not be a problem with
their competing under the Union Flag.
Instead, the piece takes exception to the decision of
Tiffany Porter, born in the USA, who refused to “recite the national anthem” for an enquiring hack. Good for her.
Her mother is British, so what’s the problem? The Tel never complained about all those from the four corners of the
Empire that volunteered to be routinely slaughtered on the battlefields of the
Great War, so why the problem over 61 athletes?
This is just cheap and jingoistic rubbish meeting Phil Space
journalism. Sadly, it may yet continue: if any of those concerned win medals, that
will be fine, but if they fail, there will be more why-oh-why copy generated
suggesting that Brits that are not deemed by the Tel to be “Plastic” will
have been denied their chance. Perhaps this is another of those subjects where Tony
Gallagher has a bee in his bonnet.
For his sake, I hope he has a better exit strategy than when
he went after the BBC recently, only for it to be revealed that he was standing
in an awfully draughty glasshouse. Otherwise,
let’s get on with the Games and forget this drivel.
And of course, they don't mention that the 61 include people like David Millar who was born in Malta while his father was stationed there in the RAF. But then, 'British people sometimes born outside of Britain because of parent's employment' isn't much of a story.
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