Downing Street, Smethwick, relies on manufacturing

Sitala Peek

BBC News, Smethwick

It shares a name with the most famous street in Britain, but there the similarity ends. Downing Street, Smethwick, is in one of the poorest areas of England. It is a street with many traditional manufacturing businesses in an area badly hit by recession. Smethwick is a town within the urban sprawl of the West Midlands. It is in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, five stops on the tram from Birmingham city centre. Many of the people who work in Downing Street commute from surrounding areas. Colin Pitt said he would vote Liberal Democrat as a protest Marie Johnston, a 50-year-old mother-of-five from Marston Green, east Birmingham, is a lifelong employee of Midland Industrial Glass. She said she was so disillusioned with politics after the MPs' expenses scandal and the recession she might not vote. Her colleague Colin Pitt, a 60-year-old glass cutter from Great Barr, north Birmingham, said there was nothing to choose between Conservative and Labour anymore. Education, education, education "I have voted Labour ever since I could vote but not again; they are selling the working class out. "They may argue with the Tories but in the end they're all the same and just in it for themselves." Mr Pitt said he was unfamiliar with the Liberal Democrats' policies, which he described as "background noise", but he would vote Lib Dem in protest. Government suppliers are delaying new orders, Chris Dukes said Chris Dukes, is managing director of IT firm Alta Systems. He has been a consistent Conservative voter. With four children he said education was his main vote-swaying issue. He said education had been "dumbed down" under Labour. He said many graduates the firm had interviewed had appalling spelling, grammar and punctuation compared with graduates 20 years earlier. 'Manufacturing decimation' Mr Dukes said: "My daughter starts secondary education in a few years and come hell or high water I will make sure she goes to a private school." Brooks once had a unit at No 10 Downing Street His three older children, aged 21, 20 and 18 were state educated. Mr Dukes' firm supplies computer-aided design systems for manufacturing companies. He said manufacturing had been decimated under Labour with the West Midlands region being hit the hardest. He said his company had made four people redundant because of the recession. Some of his manufacturing customers, who serve the NHS and Ministry of Defence, are awaiting the outcome of the election before placing new orders. Thatcher legacy Brooks bicycle saddle makers was founded as a family firm in Livery Street, central Birmingham, in 1866. It moved to Downing Street, Smethwick, in 1962 and used to occupy a unit at number 10. Robert Martin said restoring law and order was vital Robert Martin has been a Brooks tool setter and toolmaker for 51 years. He said he once considered voting Tory, but changed his mind after Margaret Thatcher "sold off water, gas and electricity". "I will never forgive them. If anyone else had done that it would be considered theft, as it was she took away the country's biggest power to raise money." Mr Martin said MPs' expenses left him disillusioned with the main three parties and the best outcome he could see for the country would be a hung Parliament. 'All self-serving' The 66-year-old grandfather from Great Barr said a big issue for him was law and order. A life-long Labour voter, Merris Davis said nothing could sway his vote He said he strongly objected when criminals were found guilty by a jury then released before serving their full sentence to ease prison overcrowding. Brooks assembly worker Merris Davis, from West Bromwich, said he had always supported Labour like his parents and their parents before them. "There's nothing any of them could do to make me change my vote, it's all irrelevant. I will vote Labour as I always have done," the Smethwick-born 62-year-old said. "There's no real difference between them though - none of them do anything for the working class. "But as long I can get by I don't really mind who is in power. Politicians are all self-serving."



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