Here we are.
We're back!
Third time I've been here in less than a year.
I don't really know why we've come back here.
But it was your own fucking idea.
It's like everything just becomes a cliche joke
and using our usual quasi scientific research methods.
They are more quasi than scientific.
I am feeling quite quasi.
What was the question; what are we are asking him?
I don't know what the question is.
Can't believe what we are doing to our country.
It just seems nothing's fair about anything.
I'm absolutely scared for their future.
In order for good things happen,
you've got to hit rock bottom first.
We've been immersed in a summer of political drama and deadlock on the ground.
Walsall is somewhere we've been on two past occasions.
It voted heavily for Brexit.
Vote Labour.
Then, while Jeremy Corbyn's Labour surged in other places,
in this area of town, Labour lost the seat to the Tories at last year's election.
So it's not a bad place to try figure out what on earth is going on 12 months later.
Well, generally this is an indicative of an Anywhere but Westminster staple
which is ... if you've got a spare couple of hours
hang around the shopping parade.
We spoke to him last time.
Excuse me sir.
We came back!
How are you feeling about where the country's gone since?
You don't think they are?
No.
Right ... less litter picking and all that.
Yes.
And you noticed that stuff?
Yeah.
Is this your business?
Yeah.
We did come in here to chat to you.
Yeah, yeah, I remember.
Do you think the country's got sort of better or worse in the last year?
No, it's getting worse ...
So, how is it getting worse?
More crimes and even my windows smashed in the shop in the last year, so ...
Have you?
Yeah.
This is council and they've took out free bins away from the area.
Just looks a mess around here,
It don't look good for new customers.
What about Brexit?
How do you think that's going?
I voted for it but I'm wondering whether it was the right decision now.
You're feeling a slight regret?
All that extra money gets spent on the health service.
You're not interested in politics at all for the sound of it.
No.
You get all your news from Facebook?
Does that mean that half of it is fake news?
Yeah.
Rubbish?
Yeah.
And then people share it and then they believe it.
It's all sort of ... what's the word for it?
It's not angry, is it?
It's resigned, that's a good word.
There's a set of cliches you have to avoid travelling around
and talking to people.
And one really is zooming in endlessly on the people who feel bleep.
Right, we are in hot pursuit of van in front.
It's from Spadework.
Which is a garden and handyman service.
They do gardening and indoor maintenance for elderly people and locals
who can't afford market rates.
It's part of an impressive Bentley based charity
that does everything from benefits advice to running a library,
a children's centre and social lunches for isolated older people.
Both things that have faced the cuts.
If you don't step up and do it for yourself, no one's gonna do it for you at the moment.
We met Denise, the woman who started it all
at the furniture exchange
I think we work with some absolutely amazing people
I think they're tough, I think they're intelligent
and I think they're streetwise
and I think that's what's keeping them going at the moment.
You just have to just plough through whatever mud you're in.
Where the sort of politics and politicians sit in?
Well, the government will do, what the government will do
because it won't make any difference.
we'll be making the difference.
At grassroots ...
Well, I met loads of people in Walsall
who just don't vote.
Well, what were you voting for?
I don't know where you live but if you live in Walsall,
everything's being cut, cut, cut ..
The council has not got funds to do these things.
It doesn't matter who's in power,
the budget's still the same.
It makes politics irrelevant then, doesn't it?
On May the 3rd, people have the chance to send
an unmistakable message to this government
that enough is enough.
Austerity is a political choice.
A political choice
the Tories and the Lib Dems made.
The political summer began with the local elections.
Corbyn and Labour framed them as a referendum on austerity.
In Walsall, party activists were trying to gain seats to cement
Labour's control of the council.
A couple of teas and some samosas.
Come on!
Walsall is the 4th poorest town in the country
but what you've got is a lot of very poor people walking around,
you can see that.
You've got homelessness,
you've got people who are not very happy.
A massive rise in antisocial behaviour in Walsall.
Drug-taking ...
The whole feel of Walsall has changed in the past few years.
And yet, in the election last year the Tories gained a seat here
Labour councils have to implement Tory cuts.
So people see them as all the same,
there are less and less people voting every year.
Terrifying in a certain sense.
It's very concerning.
Can we change your mind?
Everybody's mind can be changed.
Haj Bashir is standing in the Tory-held Paddock ward.
The Sure start, we've had several closing
and we only got one main one now in Palfrey.
Even the library ...
I look at when I was younger compare that to what's going on now
and it has got a fat lot less.
And what does Walsall need in your perspective?
Well there's a lot of deprivation, I feel.
Improvements in schools ... schooling.
We also, I do feel as well, because of different communities we have,
I mean, community cohesion is quite good really.
But there are certain communities that haven't really got a centre.
It's really things like that.
What are you actually doing ... ?
Making a film about... you know it's election day today?
Yeah, yeah.
Have you voted?
I haven't yet but I am gonna be going and vote.
You know who you're gonna vote for?
Conservatives.
I've always voted Labour.
Really?
And you switched this time?
Yeah, always voted Labour.
And have national politics got anything to do with that?
Mr Corbyn and Mrs May and all of that.
Yeah, I believe Jeremy Corbyn ... you know what? I don't even want to say what I mean.
Say what you really think.
No, I am not going to.
So Corbyn says he will reverse the cuts.
Will he?
I mean, he feels very passionate and moral about them.
He thinks they're a terrible thing and the people in places like this deserve better ...
The system is bigger than them.
You don't buy the idea that Mr Corbyn is a different sort of politician
who wants to deal with the system finally?
Whereas other people have sort of danced around them ...
I don't know ... mixed views on that if I am being honest with you.
I own the cafe on the corner there.
Seven days a week ... I'm never gonna ...
It would be the best place for you to come in mate and get some general ...
You know I'm coming from and you can get a mix of people in there.
And that's precisely the sort of voter that if the Labour party has got any chance
of winning the next elections, they have to get people like that to vote for them.
The trouble is, voters of any kind are thin on the ground.
Oh, the Guardian?
Yeah.
Commies? I wish that was true.
Well there you go. I don't think he voted Labour.
Given up.
It's kind of pointless.
You're the first person we've seen voting in about an hour.
It's probably a low turnout.
You reckon?
Can I ask you two questions really quick?
Really quick.
Excuse me asking, who did you vote for?
I can't tell you that.
Okay, second question: what was in your head issues' wise
when you were voting?
A lot of it is to do with immigration and all that.
Right. What about Walsall things?
Well, I haven't really got anything to say to be honest.
Really?
Put your cross in and that was it?
Yeah, simple.
Fair play, basic human right.
There you go.
It's the mysteries of democracy explained.
It's a close one.
OK.
Too close for.
Haj didn't win her seat and the Tories gained five.
which meant they seized leadership of the council from Labour
and that's the march of the winners.
Conservatives have done very well in here tonight.
The Labour party has not.
Jeremy Corbyn's our only hope
of ever saving this country.
Nothing is solid.
Shocked you came back.
We're making a film about Walsall.
OK.
Why are you laughing?
It's time we took this back to the streets and the lanes.
The towns and the villages.