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Much of the talk about high-speed rail has focused, quite rightly, on how much closer it will bring us to London because of reduced journey times. What interests me is whether such links will also change the nature of the relationship, or non-relationship, between London, its institutions and its businesses and the rest of the country.

As someone who lived and worked in London for 17 years, I feel I can speak with some authority on the prevailing attitude in London towards the provinces. And apart from a vague recognition that Manchester and Liverpool are full of chippy northerners and produce some great music , and that Newcastle is full of people who take their shirts off at football matches even in winter, nothing much else resonates. If you asked the average, educated Londoner walking around the City what they know about Coventry, Leicester or Stoke and their local economies, the chances are that the answer would be “Very little”.

I get phone calls on a regular basis from so-posh-you-can-barely-understand-them London PR girls that go something like this.

PR girl: “Hi Andy, this is Tilly Swinton-Smythe from Kensington PR. Can you tell me whether your magazine covers Leeds?”

Me: “Hi Tilly. No we’re a Midlands magazine.”

Tilly: “Oh ok. Where would you consider Leeds to be?”

Me: “Where it’s always been Tilly: in the north, specifically Yorkshire.”

Tilly: “Oh yah. Ok. No biggy. Ciao then.”

I wish I could say I was exaggerating for effect.

The more serious point, of course, is that London attitudes to the provinces are still very much of the ‘nothing north of Watford’ variety, and it is up to representatives of this region, our cities and our businesses to change those perceptions.

Much good work has been done already. The Derby Embassy events in London organised by Marketing Derby, for example, have brought key businesses based in that city together with decision-makers in London.

And many professional services firms and property consultancies work seamlessly between London and a number of provincial cities.

But to attract inward investment to the region and to encourage London businesses and advisers – most venture capitalists are in London, of course – to engage with the business community here, more needs to be done to sell the region. Telling people how quickly they can be somewhere doesn’t mean that they will want to go there.

The noises emanating from Birmingham City Council at the MIPIM property and investment convention in Cannes, suggest council leader Mike Whitby’s ‘decade of delivery’ is underway. Hopefully, some of the public sector-led projects he’s announcing will get private sector backing and really get things moving.

Making a noise in this way is something we are all going to have to do outside of the region in the months and years to come if we want Midlands PLC to succeed. The likes of Neil Rami at Marketing Birmingham are well aware of this. He said to me recently that “over the next 12 months, you will see a much more joined-up approach from Birmingham when it comes to it being a place to do business”.

And on a personal note, it would be great if I could ring up Tilly Swinton-Smythe in a couple of years’ time and ask her whether her Greater London PR remit now covers the Midlands.

Andy Coyne, editor, Midlands Business Insider