The Conservative Party is open to everyone whether they are Asian, British, Chinese or Caribbean. If they think like a Conservative and share the Conservative philosophy they will be welcome in the party. Asians make a huge contribution to the UK and I would like to see more Asian MPs.”He said: “The Asian culture and other cultures have sunk deep into the British way of life … The old shibboleths and fears that people raised have gone and people now work, cheek by jowl, with Asian neighbours.”But a survey to be published in London’s Time Out magazine tomorrow suggests that hardly any black Londoners believe Mr Major is sincerely concerned about the issues affecting them.The survey found that only 2.5 per cent of those who responded thought he was concerned, and one-quarter of the 18- to 35-year-olds believed that he may even be a racist. More than half of those in the Time Out survey were not registered to vote and of those who were, one in five said that they would not be voting on 1 May.. The soldierly Paddy Ashdown has set female hearts aflutter during the hustings – well at least those of a certain age.

Yesterday he failed to impress eight-year-old Lucy McMahon of Stithians Primary School, near Truro, Cornwall. Invited to contribute her political opinions to a class poster, “GOVERNMENT – WHAT WE THINK”, Ms McMahon ventured ; “You should only vote for rich or hunky men.”
Asked whether Mr Ashdown fitted the bill, she smiled, declined to reply, but said Sebastian Coe did. The former athlete lives in the village and is the sitting Tory MP for the constituency.Perhaps the most controversial comment, however, came from the whole of class three. “We think there should be more people like Rolf Harris,” they said. One young classmate, called Morwenna, wrote: “I don’t think children know what they are talking about, so should not vote.” So, people who are 18 years old and over do?An emerging right-winger called Kirsten demanded that “people should stay in prison longer”. She showed a degree of political ecleticism, however, by siding with the anti-hunt lobby: “People who kill animals for fun should be put in prison for a year.”Later, Mr Ashdown showed admirable restraint when a ferret appeared behind him on a wall as he was interviewed on television.

He said the creature was the most patient and docile he had set eyes on.Elsewhere in Cornwall, the campaign to elicit support from the younger generation got dirtier by the minute.The Conservatives even offered children a ban on homework. In another outrageous ploy, they promised that a reformed child benefits system under a Conservative government would cut out the middle man, namely parents.The “mock election” at Saltash Community School is not for the politically squeamish.One Tory poster, put up in a school corridor, was craftily coloured Liberal Democrat yellow and proclaimed: “The Liberal philosophy – you worked for it, now we will take it; a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for higher taxes; the Liberals would rob you of your earnings – why not rob them of your support?”Conservative supporters, who mysteriously failed to appear during Mr Ashdown’s visit to the school, whether through boycott or diktat of the head teacher, had so far refused to take the posters down.Perhaps the school philosophy at Stithians Primary should be taken on board by politicians of all hues: “Be honest, own up and don’t tell lies.”. A cold wind knifing down the South Wales valley seemed to spur Margrit Williams, the Tory candidate with the highest mountain in Britain to climb, to greater efforts. She was out seeking elusive supporters in Tredegar, the heart of the Blaenau Gwent constituency, which in 1992 returned Labour’s Llewellyn Smith with a majority of more than 30,000. “I hope you can support me on 1 May,” shoppers were told hopefully as they headed down Commercial Street.
Commercial Street was, in name at least, an appropriate locale for Ms Williams to canvass. She was for some time an investment consultant based in Hong Kong. Born in 1964 at Southend-on-Sea in Essex, she lived in Germany for a while, and then served as a councillor in the Tory flagship borough of Wandsworth, south-west London, before embarking on a journey that seems fated to end up as an”Essex Woman Routed by Valleys Man” story in the local paper, the Gwent Gazette to which she used to contribute a column.The area is saturated with reminders of radicalism.

The Tredegar Workmen’s Medical Aid Society, a service built with the pennies of miners and steelworkers, was the inspiration for the National Health Service, set up by Aneurin Bevan, the local MP from 1929 to 1960. Four huge stone pillars on a hillside commemorate the man and his works – three represent the towns of Tredegar, Ebbw Vale and Rhymney and the fourth and largest, Bevan himself.Ms Williams passes it frequently but is unlikely to pay it much heed. Her undoubted energy and commitment qualifies her as one of Baroness Thatcher’s doughty fighters.Not every passer-by accepted the blue-bordered leaflets promising to expose allegations of waste in the local authority where there is a solitary Tory councillor among the 42.Iona Pettic turned aside, commenting: “The Tories have done precious little for the Valleys since Thatcher got in. They’ve got no chance here.”A retired education welfare officer, Arthur Morgan, spoke with the authority of his 79 years. “The Tory candidate will get between 2,000 and 3,000 votes,” he forecast.Brian Reardon, cousin of Tredegar snooker star Ray Reardon, lost his job in 1989 when Markham colliery, a few miles outside the town, was closed. His file of job applications is a couple of inches thick, but in seven years he’s only worked for six months “One post in a residential home paid pounds 2.60 an hour.