James Delingpole: As a Brummie, I am aggrieved with Peaky Blinders

You wait a whole lifetime for a lavishly shot, starrily cast, mega-budget gangster drama set in Birmingham to come along. Then when it does, it’s absolute rubbish.

Well, I’m sorry but it is and as a Brummie — near enough: I grew up in a village called Alvechurch, just outside, and I come from a long line of Midlands industrialists — I feel particularly aggrieved by the entirely unjustified acclaim being heaped on the dismal Peaky Blinders (Thursday, BBC2).

Let’s start with the accents. Some sound like a mélange of Liverpool and generic northern; others sound Irish, even when spoken by characters who aren’t supposed to be Irish. The series is set in Small Heath in 1919. Times have changed a bit since then, I’m sure, but Brummagem accents? I doubt it. Birmingham, by then, had had a good three centuries as one of the nation’s industrial epicentres to establish its particular style and voice.