The by-election started well for the Tories, says donald malcolm. Then it all went downhill... |
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David Cameron will make his fourth - and possibly fifth - visit to the Ealing Southall by-election this week in an effort to put the Tory campaign back on track.
It all started so promisingly with the Tory leader's bold decision to handpick a candidate who wasn't even a party member before the by-election. Tony Lit is young, wealthy, photogenic and - most important – Asian.
More than six out of 10 Southall voters are from ethnic minorities and nearly a quarter are Sikhs. Tony Lit is a Sikh - the son of the founder of Sunrise Radio, Britain's largest Asian station - and his campaign got an immediate boost with the defection of a leading Sikh councillor who had failed to get selected as the Labour's by-election candidate.
Tory activists talked of pulling off an historic victory, despite trailing Labour at the last general election by nearly 13,000 votes.
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| Cameron’s third visit to Ealing was a disaster of headlines and haranguings |
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But then they began to over-reach themselves. They spun journalists with promises of more defections from Labour that didn't materialise. And David Cameron's third campaign visit on Friday was a near disaster; under the headline 'Cameron rattled', the Times man reported that the Tory leader was "harangued several times" by residents on his walkabout.
Then, just in time for the Sunday papers - which already had a juicy ICM poll giving Labour a seven-point lead over the Tories - Labour detonated their bombshell: just a few weeks before he became Cameron's Tory standard-bearer, Tony Lit was photographed cosying up to Tony Blair at a fund-raising dinner where he put £4,800 into Labour's coffers.
Now Labour snappers have been given another target. Tony Lit's father Atvar drives around in a blue Rolls Royce, with the personalised number plates L1TTT. Labour have told their campaigners to keep digital cameras at the ready to snap Tony in the Roller if he ever takes a lift from his dad. 
FIRST POSTED JULY 16, 2007
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