The Walsall Manifesto.

A. Preamble

A few months back, me and a few mates met in a balti house in Pleck (Walsall, West Midlands) near the wonderful surroundings of junction 9 of the M6. We all feel that Walsall is under-represented in the mainstream media. For some reason places like Euston and London get more attention and are somehow seen as more 'sexy'.

This manifesto intends to put Walsall on the map and we look forward to copious levels of discussion about this manifesto in the Times and Guardian and across the whole 'blogosphere', and this manifesto becoming the number one google entry for 'walsall'.

B. Statement of principles

1. We like to have a drink and a curry. The fattest people in the country come from Walsall don't you know. Our 20 stone MP (Bruce George - Labour, Walsall South) says it's nonsense that Walsall people are fat!

2. We saw pictures of Iraq on the TV and thought jeez that looks just like Caldmore (local joke, if you are from Walsall you'll know what I mean). As the saddlers fans (Walsall FC) recently chanted as they were relegated to the bottom division of the football league 'we couldn't score in Caldmore'.

3. A midlands accent doesn't mean we are thick. We really resent that electoral commission advert at the last election and the general representation of midlands people on the media, it's anti-midlands-ish or sommat (me and my mates disagreed about who was responsible for this but were united in condemning it).

C. Elaborations

That's about it, for more see ugly walsall.com

I'll leave you with critic Theodore Dalrymple's description of Walsall;

"While Walsall undoubtedly exists, it is difficult to know where precisely it begins and ends, because it is in the middle of one of the largest and most depressing contiguous areas of urban devastation in the world."