The situation at Longbridge “stinks”...

The army of celebrities for the second Robert Winsor Charity Golf Classic started flying into Palma yesterday and one of the stars, the comedian of many talents Jasper Carrott, spoke of how, after a glistening career as one of Britain's best ever comedians, he is taking life a little easier nowadays, has even turned his hand to writing - but not comedy - he is a monthly columnist for a golfing magazine. But one thing Carrott can never ignore is where he comes from and the atmosphere is far from amusing in Birmingham at the moment with the future of Rover and 60'000 jobs in the balance. Carrott feels that BMW has stuck its fingers up at Midlands workers. “The reason BMW bought Rover is that wanted to close the Longbridge plant down because that's where we built the Spitfires,” he says. “It's a very serious situation,” he added “there are 60'000 people whose livelihoods depend upon the next couple of weeks. It's not just the 60'000 people who will lose their jobs, but it's the knock on effect with other trades, houses, rents, foods, I mean it just goes on and on and on and, I'm not going get political about it, but I would hate to think of the reasons all behind it. It smells and stinks of something horrible.” Carrott has been left in no doubts that BMW only wanted Rover for Land Rover, knowing that the saloon side “would go down the nick and that would be less competition for them.” But while the star of the hit series The Detectives and a string of hugely successful comedy series, the last of which went out last year, admits that Birmingham is not a fun place to be at the moment, he is adamant that the Brummies will bounce back. “Birmingham is a really exciting city, it's always led the way although it always get knocks, it's very forward thinking but it deserves more than what it is getting now.