Tunesmith, many of do not use "our own regional accent", and maybe don't even know what it is. We use or at least attempt to use Received Pronunciation, known disparagingly as BBC English. Sources say that it accent of Southern England, but certainly not all of Southern England. My grandfather was from Somerset and he didn't speak like that, and as discussed above Ian Dury didn't speak or sing like that. Now it may be wrong, it may even be discrimination, but we have found that speaking like helps one to get on in life.

Now the BBC, tarred with the brush of enforcing uniformity, have gone completely the other way, and there are many presenters now on mainstream shows who speak in affected and pretty unintelligible regional accents. North East, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Wales, Scotland. They lay it on thick and I bet they don't speak like that when the cameras are off them.

The rest of us don't speak like that. It isn't American influence, it is in part the BBC, but we don't and why should we?

Billy Fury sang in a perfectly natural, very intelligible, neutral British accent. Good for him.