Labour braced for West Midlands backlash

Labour is braced for a backlash from the volatile voters of the West Midlands following the collapse of MG Rover. The flying visit by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to Birmingham yesterday underlines the region's crucial significance to the country's political map.

It used to be said that success in the West Midlands, with more than 20 seats where Labour and the Tories were both in serious contention, was vital to winning power.

Today there are fewer highly marginal seats, with Labour defending comfortable majorities in several constituencies held by the Conservatives through the Thatcher years.

Among them is Birmingham Northfield, which includes the Longbridge car plant, where Richard Burden, the independent-minded Labour MP, piled up 56 per cent of the vote in 2001.

However, within half an hour's drive of the factory there are still at least a dozen Labour-held seats, all containing component suppliers which relied heavily on Rover, where the Government cannot take victory for granted. Labour candidates in those constituencies will argue that ministers did everything they could to avert the company's collapse, blaming it on the failure of its potential partners in China to shake hands on a deal.

Stephen McCabe, MP for Birmingham Hall Green, said: "It would be wrong for anybody to try to exploit the situation politically. The opposition parties could not have done more than the Government."

Labour sources also pointed out that far fewer workers rely on Rover in the region - 6,000 employed in the factory and perhaps about 10,000 in component manufacturers - than even five years ago when it was last on the verge of collapse. One said: "It's hard to see them rushing into the Tories' arms after what Thatcher did to the Midlands."

One Labour candidate said: "Rover has been in trouble for years. Everyone knows that. I don't think we'll take too much flak for that."

But the Government's determination to trumpet the strength of the economy under Labour will ring rather hollow following the death of Rover.

Labour's biggest risk is that the working-class and lower middle-class supporters it won back in 1992 and 1997 will simply stay at home on 5 May or flirt with fringe candidates.

That could hand Birmingham Yardley to the Liberal Democrats, who have assiduously cultivated the seat since the early 1990s. Their drive has also been boosted by the decision of Estelle Morris, the Arts minister, to step down. She held on with a majority of 2,576 at the last election.

The Conservatives will concentrate their efforts on: Redditch, where the Industry minister, Jacqui Smith, is defending a vulnerable 2,484 majority; Wolverhampton South- West (Labour majority 3,487); Stourbridge (Labour majority 3,812) and Warwick & Leamington (Labour majority 5,953).

They would dearly love to win back Birmingham Edgbaston to show they are back in business in the inner cities, but Labour's Gisela Stuart looks destined to hang on because of demographic changes.

Mr McCabe held Hall Green, home to many Rover workers, by 6,648 at the last election over the Tories, who need a 10.5 per cent swing to oust him. A shift on that scale would mean 20 West Midlands seats falling into Tory hands. Repeated nationwide, Michael Howard would be picking up the keys to Downing Street.

The fate of Longbridge has long preoccupied politicians. The crisis gripping British Leyland in 1975 persuaded Harold Wilson to nationalise it. The wave of militancy at the plant in the late 1970s epitomised the unrest of Jim Callaghan's years. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher poured billions more into Austin Rover.

In 2000, Stephen Byers, who was trade secretary, helped to broker the Phoenix takeover. People warned that Longbridge might only have five years' more useful life. The forecast proved uncannily accurate.