Cameron pleads for extras to perform his Ealing comedy

From: The Independent

Thursday's by-election in Ealing Southall (prompted by the demise of Parliament's cheery oldest member, Piara Khabra) is the most bizarre and bitter for years, with defections and dirty tricks. Look suspiciously upon anyone loudly predicting the outcome.

The poll is seen as a test of Dave Cameron's mettle. Labour have a stonking 11,440 majority, but until last week Tory strategists were confident their candidate, the debonair Sikh businessman Tony Lit, 34, could bite a chunk from this and maybe even devour the opposition.

Until, that is, it emerged that Lit joined the Conservatives only a few days before becoming the candidate; and that his company, Sunrise Radio, last month gave £4,800 to Labour at a dinner for Asian businessmen, where he posed for a pic with Tony Blair.

It seems that Cameron's apparatchiks are suffering from squeaky bums: yesterday lunchtime, Tory MPs got a missive from the whips' office pleading for help canvassing in Ealing. The whips said they were "short of volunteers" and it'd be "an enormous help" if MPs report for service immediately.

One Conservative MP tells me: "They must be joking. His episode with Blair has embarrassed the party. I am not surprised, following Mr Lit's performance, that there aren't too many Tory volunteers volunteering in Ealing Southall. This is looking rather desperate."

Lit's father turned up yesterday "in his black Rolls Royce with personalised number plates, L1 TTT ... He was hurriedly shooed away from the waiting photographers and camera crews."