HEART OF ENGLAND

Jonathan Meades’s perceptive and witty commentary on the Midlands (November) unravels the kernel of its truth — that it is an unassuming region of great strength and self-assurance. Its populous diversity is housed in settings urban and rural, which are themselves powerfully industrial and unobtrusively beautiful. For me the Midlands, or as I prefer, Mercia, is, as well as being the geographic heart of England, its modest, amorphous, spiritual core.

I once knew a Tory MP who advocated that his beloved Yorkshire should have its own Whitehall department and secretary of state. He was besotted to distraction and not a little chippy. Periodically I am approached by ambitious Brummie politicos and academics seeking help for a new regional think-tank or similar initiative.

Such enthusiasms, I argue, are invariably misplaced. To gain unignorable influence politically and culturally one should seek assimilation, not separateness. The Welshman has always understood this better than the Scot.

To this end it does not matter much to us that other regions and cities of our kingdom are noisier, more separate in identity and more easily offended. We Midlanders are confident of remaining the economic powerhouse of the country with a youthful, diverse, culturally vibrant Birmingham at its core. Johnny Leavesley

chairman, midlands industrial council, lichfield