David - you're correct. Selecting the country/region will deliver more tailored news to you. If you like in the UK, we endeavour to show you all UK related content if you have that set as your selection.
If you're not seeing much difference, it could simply be that not much 'local' content has been produced lately. In that case all global stories will still flow through the homepage as usual.
To clarify, as admittedly my original statement didn't make this clear, I was questioning more the fact of what I would argue to be non-UK stories, such as those about US carriers, appearing on the UK version - a few examples are given below that are on the UK version:
...and once you select U.K. as your preferred edition, it should stick there for future visits. If you want to change it up simply use the drop down menu once again!