Can the Tories win back the Indian vote from Labour?

Nearly 50 years ago, soon after I first came to this country, my landlady, upset I was reading the Guardian and not her favourite newspaper the Daily Telegraph, said, ‘You must not believe Labour propaganda that they gave India freedom. Churchill would have done the same had he won the 1945 election.’ Had my landlady been alive and witnessed how Narendra Modi has been received by David Cameron, culminating in yesterday’s love fest at Wembley, she would have required little convincing that her beloved party is no longer a pariah for Indians in this country. For all the talk of developing ties with India to attract investments and create jobs, the most interesting aspect of Team UK-Team India bonding, to use Cameron’s favourite phrase, is how the Prime Minister has achieved what a lot of Conservative leaders have long desired: a take-over of Labour’s Indian estate.

Cameron has been helped by the fact that Labour has long neglected the estate.