Bostin' news!

I'm amazed Tom Watson hasn't spotted this already, but a researcher has discovered that the Brummie accent is one of the favourite British accents amongst foreigners:

The Birmingham accent is far from its traditional image of "ugly" and "inferior" and is, in fact, regarded as "lilting and melodious" by overseas visitors, academics have discovered.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham found that the second city's much-maligned accent is highly favoured by foreign visitors unaware of the negative connotations the accent holds in Britain.

Though there is part of me that suspects researchers at Newcastle would find that foreigners liked the Geordie accent best, researchers in Cardiff would find they liked the Welsh accent best etc...