Dear Editor, I may be unusual for a born and bred Brummie, but I have been unimpressed by the tiresome debate over Birmingham’s so called Second City status. I am unclear what benefits this status has brought us over the years.

Do, for example, businesses blindly flock here to invest purely because they have heard we are the Second City? Or do they do their research first? I suspect the latter.

I think it is difficult to objectively claim that Birmingham is of “higher rank” than say Manchester, Glasgow or Liverpool – they are all great cities with their own unique merits.

What exactly is better about Birmingham? The people? Are we genetically superior?

The city centre? Can we claim to have a more attractive centre than any of those cities?

Our trade and commerce? Are we any more productive than those cities?

There are any number of parameters that we could look at which on closer inspection may expose how meaningless Second City status really is.

Maybe we should be proud of all the cities on this island, rather than getting bogged down about our own status and being forced to dine out on past industrial achievements, the so-called Balti Triangle or Ozzy Osbourne.

Hard work, respect for our own environment and a skilled workforce are the only ways we will compete in the future and any allusion to some Second City status is merely a distraction.

P Davies

Kings Norton