Following criticism of Staffordshire as a place to live in Country Life
magazine and the Sunday Times, Staffordshire’s Conservative and Labour MPs
have joined together to table a Parliamentary Motion in defence of the
County. Michael Fabricant says: "It’s good to see that when push comes to
shove, Labour and Conservative MPs can unite when our County is attacked. I
hope that there will be similar unity to oppose the Government’s proposals
to set up a regional assembly in Birmingham and dissolve Staffordshire
County Council"

The text of the Motion now follows:-

That this House repudiates the recently published slurs on the county of
Staffordshire, home of the UK’s ceramics industry, the three-spired 800
year-old Lichfield Cathedral, Britain’s number one visitor attraction Alton
Towers, Uttoxeter racecourse and fine Burton beers; notes the county boasts
huge areas of precious and protected countryside like Staffordshire
Moorlands and Cannock Chase, a built heritage that includes a network of
canals, Smallthorne’s Ford Green Hall, Stafford’s Ancient High House, Sir
Christopher Wren’s only parish church outside London at Ingestre,
Shugborough Hall and Weston Park; recognises this birthplace of Izaak
Walton, Samual Johnson and David Garrick, a treasure store of the arts
including the inventive New Vic theatre in the round, Stoke on Trent’s City
Museum and Art Gallery, which claims the best collection of fine bone china
in the world, the Bass Museum in Britain’s brewing capital of
Burton-on-Trent, Lichfield’s internationally renowned annual arts festival,
Stafford’s annual Shakespeare at the Castle, the award-winning county youth
orchestra and superb outreach arts and sports services befitting a big
county which is 80 per cent. rural; notes the superb achievement of the
county’s youth demonstrated in high numbers of Duke of Edinburgh awards, the
largest number of eco-schools in the country and educational results
described jointly by the Audit Commission and OFSTED as ‘often above both
the national average and that found in similar authorities’; and calls on
visitors from outside the county to join those who live and work in it
discovering these many delights that Staffordshire has to offer.