WHAT’S it like to live in a country that hates itself?

I’m asking that in all honesty. I was born and grew up in Birmingham. I’m not English, but I am a Brummie. Not a Brummie Brummie.

But a Brummie all the same. An Irish Brummie. These are very real distinctions, and it is those distinctions that made growing up in a multicultural society what it was.

There was Birmingham and, within Birmingham, lots of other Birminghams. An immigrant city. There were strains and stresses.

There was some ugly language, and there were racists and bigots for sure, but by and large my experience was of a city that functioned well as a place. As a city.

There was also a wonderful, self-deprecating humour about the city. It was an ugly place then, full of abandoned factories and horrendously planned concrete subways.

The humour of the place recognised this. It’s a dump, but it’s our dump and we love it was the tenor of the days. No one claimed beauty for the place, but no one despised it. No one hated it.

I’m........

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