The city's Asian communities – mainly Bengali, Indian, Muslim and Sikh – are well-established, having first come to work in the city's hosiery and textile factories after the war. Ahmed takes me for lunch at Island Dishes in St Matthews, a district close to the city centre known colloquially as 'Mashtown', 'Hell City' and 'Little Somalia'. A source who spent many years working professionally with the tensions and divisions in Leicester, and has seen them at close hand, tells me: 'The Hindu community tends to vote Conservative, largely as a reaction to the Muslim community's Labour leanings and its strong links to the Labour political establishment here.