Dear readers — welcome Brummies, yam-yams, Wulfrunians, all tribes from across this great region of ours to your Monday Briefing.
If the weekend read has taught us anything at The Dispatch, it’s 1) our readership hails from far across Mercia and 2) there remains plenty of appetite among you all for perhaps the bitterest and most divisive row of the 21st century.
Kate’s view, laid out on Sunday, that it’s time to change the name of the West Midlands to Greater Birmingham garnered a lot of support from readers — a surprising number of whom are not Brummies. Take this commenter who thinks we are just a bit too clannish: “I'm born and bred in the Black Country and would be all in favour of Greater Birmingham. Like it or not, it is all one conurbation, and outsiders are always baffled by the distinction.” Elsewhere, one Wolverhampton native admitted to finding the idea quite appealing (although they also planned on “going into hiding” should any of their mates find out).
An especially interesting point was raised in the comments: “Post-bankrupt Birmingham now has an awful reputation globally of how not to run a city.” This is a refrain you hear more and more frequently and it's one — of course – we ought to take seriously. It was just the other day we saw pitchforks raised against our latest accuser, Julia Willemyns of the Centre for British Progress, who wrote that nowhere in the UK is British “decline” felt as strongly as Birmingham. In the coming weeks we want to publish a long piece addressing the Birmingham Reputation Question and we’d like your views. Do you feel like you’re living in the UK capital of decline? Or do you think it's a tired take pushed by bad actors? Let’s hear it.
Before you crack on with today’s news: we’re pleased to say that 30,092 of you are regular readers of The Dispatch! We’re aiming for the heady heights of 35,000 by the end of the month.
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