Cameron is given a black eye by the real Southall

Sunday Times

David Cameron’s new hip-and-happening, ethnic-friendly Conservative party crashed and burnt against a brick wall of indifference in the Ealing Southall by-election last Thursday. Cameron paid five high-profile visits to the constituency to support Tony Lit, the slick 34-year-old Asian candidate he had excitedly hoped would snatch the seat from a vice-like Labour grip. David Davis, George Osborne and Kenneth Clarke also lent their support to Lit, who limped home in third place.

A friend of mine who lives in Southall described Lit as the Tory party’s “Great brown hope”, its first Asian candidate in what is an overwhelmingly Asian neighbourhood. Lit had been until recently the managing director of his father’s Sunrise Radio, a hugely successful Asian station; but his selection, my friend mischievously remarked, was merely a clumsy attempt to “curry favour with the natives”, proving how out of touch the Conservatives are with local communities. In its desperation to prove its credentials as a reformed and inclusive party the Tories threw their weight behind someone with no grass roots support, thinking his colour and social status were enough to secure victory.

Having grown up in the area, I was fascinated by the excitement surrounding Lit. Young, sharp suited and sporting a perfectly set Bollywood bouffant, he marketed himself as representing a new Tory era, hoping to prove the party is “the spiritual home” of the Asian community, sharing its basic values of “family, enterprise and civil liberties”.

But while Southall’s Asian population is entrepreneurial and family-oriented, it is at heart a blue-collar neighbourhood that remembers the debt it owes to a welfare state that nursed and educated its children, and to the trade unions that protected its jobs and helped in the fight against racism. The riot that broke out when the National Front tried to march through the high street in 1979 is a basic part of Southall folklore. If the Tories were going to win it over they needed to offer a lot more than a brown-skinned Cameron clone.

One common criticism of Lit among the people I spoke to last week was that “He’s too young. What does he know?”. While the Tories hailed his youth and energy, they overlooked the fact that Asians generally revere age and experience. While Lit promoted himself as young and modern, the seat was won at a canter with a low-profile campaign by the 60-year-old Virendra Sharma, who has served as a Labour councillor for more than 25 years.

The Labour party even hired an old Indian Tata bus, decked out in gold and silver decorations, from which to blare out its campaign messages. It was a touch of sentimental genius, a comforting nod to the people’s love of their motherland and their roots.

Sandwiched between the leafy bourgeois west London environ of Ealing and Heathrow, Southall is recognised throughout the world as “Little India”, a place more akin to Mumbai than a British suburb. Two months back the American hip-hop mogul Timbaland was spotted spending thousands of pounds in its music shops, buying records for his sampling archive. When the kids in Brooklyn next shake their booty to a bhangra-inspired Missy Elliott track they’ll have Southall to thank for it.

Largely built by migrants from the north Indian region of Punjab (nowadays the mix includes Poles, Somalis and Afro-Caribbeans) it’s a bustling, exotic place packed with shops selling saris, Indian jewellery and every type of spice. Its most famous pub is the Glassy Junction, the only pub outside India that accepts rupees. Glassy Junction is famed for serving traditional Punjabi food and drink, and is also renowned for its very British strip night, when the white performer walks among the customers after her routine with an empty pint glass – this time accepting only sterling.

Southall is a traditional, close-knit but also parochial and gossipy neighbourhood. Growing up there in the 1980s I couldn’t even smoke a cigarette on a street corner without some busybody relaying the information to my mum before I’d even got back home. When I was young it was impossible to talk to girls on the street; they would always be chaperoned. Back then, the girls generally wore thick plaits and traditional clothing, and stared submissively at the floor.

Last week I saw young women in sexy modern outfits, chatting into mobile phones while brazenly looking boys in the eye as they passed them by. But the downside to this westernisation is that Southall has seen a 144% increase in drug use among the young since 2000 and a rise in teenage pregnancies.

The Tories might have thought Lit’s fame was an asset, but it provided negative fuel for the gossips. Shopkeepers spoke to me of a “Lit mafia” taking over the area. Lit’s father Avtar had transformed a pirate station that operated out of borrowed attics in the 1980s into a legitimate business that is now worth millions. Avtar is a notorious Southall figure, not least for outraging the locals by divorcing his first wife – Tony’s mother – and marrying again, an act regarded as scandalous by Asians of his generation.

In the 2001 general election Avtar ran as an independent, only to lose and have Sunrise fined £10,000 for broadcasting a political interview with him in breach of the Broadcasting Act. Avtar Lit is the subject of much local tittle-tattle regarding his business and personal dealings; choosing his son wasn’t the smartest move the Conservatives could make.

Though Tony’s campaign was fought within the rules, he made the most of his radio connections as his campaign cars drove around blaring recordings by Sunrise’s most famous presenters. Many people regarded Lit’s desire to win the seat as an attempt to turn their town into a father and son family business.

The Tories offered no solutions to Southall’s problems. I spoke to Parag Bhargava, who manages a Southall marriage bureau, who told me the area needs a Tube link to ease the traffic congestion that is affecting local businesses, and that more facilities are needed for young people who are increasingly caught up in antisocial behaviour.

The other issues the town faces, he told me, are the rising number of Asian women who can’t find a husband, as young men opt for a social life and one-night stands, and the fact Sikh women generally prefer Sikh men who don’t wear turbans, causing a glut of turbaned bachelors. If Tony Lit had offered solutions to any of this he’d be sitting in Westminster tomorrow, said Bhargava. Cameron’s new look Tories have a lot to learn.