Robert Jenrick – keep Birmingham, my beloved hometown, out of your mouth

As the shadow justice secretary stands by his comments calling the UK’s second city the closest thing in this country to a slum, proud Brummie Shazia Mirza – who went to a local Catholic school, despite being Muslim – says she finds that hard to believe

Birmingham looks quite nice now that it’s finished. It has the beautiful Bullring shopping centre, the eye-catching Selfridges building – four storeys high and decorated with 15,000 blue aluminium discs – and indoor and outdoor markets where you can get a bag of fish and a bag of bras for a pound.

You can go out for a night up the Broad Street, and then go for a famous balti up the Ladypool Road, an Indian on the Coventry Road, jerk chicken in Handsworth, and fish and chips in Harborne.

Soho Road in Handsworth is also famous. It’s got everything you want. West Indian bakeries, all the turmeric and garam masala you need from the Asian supermarkets, yams from the African food store, gold from the various jewellers, and you can get your back, sack and crack waxed at World of Beauty.

There has always been everyone and everything in Birmingham. It’s famous for its culture, diversity and integration. Even the bands are a reflection of the city: UB40, Black Sabbath, Duran Duran, Electric Light Orchestra.

My parents sent me to a Roman Catholic primary school, Our Lady of Fatima. They normally didn’t let Muslims in, but my mum says she persuaded them with homemade chapatis. I’m the only kid in Birmingham who can say the Hail Mary in Urdu. This is integration.

So I am extremely surprised by what Robert Jenrick has said about my hometown: “I went to Handsworth in Birmingham the other day to do a video on litter, and it was absolutely appalling. It’s as close as I’ve come to a slum in this country.” I find that hard to believe, as he was born in Wolverhampton.

He continued: “The other thing I noticed there was that it was one of the worst integrated places I’ve ever been to. In fact, in the hour and a half I was filming there, I didn’t see another white face.”

He didn’t see a white face in 90 minutes? He didn’t look long. They were probably inside Sangam Sweet Centre buying a bag of samosas, or having the union jack tattooed on their backside with henna.

“That’s not the kind of country I want to live in,” says Jenrick. “I want to live in a country where people are properly integrated. It’s not about the colour of your skin or your faith – of course it isn’t. But I want people to be living alongside each other, not parallel lives. That’s not the right way we want to live as a country.”

He’s talking rubbish. People of different faiths, cultures, religions and colours have always integrated in Birmingham. In Handsworth, they have always lived next to each other. All we hear is “Integrate! Integrate! And then we’ll accept you…”.

But that is what people have come here to be a part of; they love being British. My dad is called Mohammed, but he abbreviates it to Bob. And they all did that in the 1960s. My uncle Saleem had a 6ft-long beard, went to the mosque five times a day, and he was called Henry.

What is Jenrick moaning about? The truth is, whatever he thinks, it’s still going to be a Nigerian nurse wiping his bottom in the old people’s home – and he’s going to have the shock of his life when he wakes up in six months, and my lot are still running every kebab shop, petrol station, doctor’s surgery and post office.

You can’t live without immigrants. They add to British life and culture. It’s what makes Britain great. We don’t want the bland leading the bland.

With Birmingham binmen on strike, rubbish has piled up on the streets in Handsworth (Getty)

After all that Birmingham has gone through recently – going bankrupt, binmen on strike (seven months and counting…) – the last thing we need is Jenrick, from famously multicultural Wolverhampton, telling us that Birmingham is a slum with no integration. If anyone needs to integrate, it’s him.

Jenrick’s misinformation and slandering of the UK’s second city is the most un-British thing of all. He needs to listen to some Slade and Beverley Knight and remember his diverse and multicultural roots. In fact, he needs to go back to where he came from.

Shazia Mirza is a comedian. Find out more about her latest UK tour dates here