I thinks its the civil service mentality.
An old friend of mine use to get all sorts of grief, as he was born in Kuala Lumpur, as his dad was in the Army out there. The next question was usually, well where were your parents born? China and USA meant he was a foreigner, which was true really, because he was Scottish, and married an American
Spike Milligan had similar problems, because although born in India, as his dad was a British soldier, it was before partition, and his parents were technically Irish, so in 1981 he became stateless, even though he'd held British passports and been conscripted. The Irish would only give him a passport if it was green.
You couldn't make this up if you tried
