Is THIS why ex-Independent editor Amol Rajan suddenly switch his newspaper's support to the Tories?

It was an editorial volte-face that confounded The Independent's Left-wing readership. A senior political source has claimed to The Mail on Sunday that Mr Rajan – now a rising star at the BBC – had agreed to support the Conservatives if Mr Cameron agreed to attend the birthday party of his proprietor, the Russian businessman Evgeny Lebedev. Mr Rajan, who has faced controversy in recent weeks over an explosive BBC documentary which prompted the Royal Family to threaten to boycott the Corporation, made history as the first non-white Fleet Street newspaper editor when he was appointed in 2013 at the age of 29. A senior political source has claimed to The Mail on Sunday that Amol Rajan – now a rising star at the BBC – had agreed to support the Conservatives if Mr Cameron agreed to attend the birthday party of his proprietor, the Russian businessman Evgeny Lebedev A blistering editorial on the same day declared: 'The Conservatives have misread the national mood again, showing that they do not reflect Britain as once they did.' Mr Rajan, who has faced controversy in recent weeks over an explosive BBC documentary which prompted the Royal Family to threaten to boycott the Corporation, made history as the first non-white Fleet Street newspaper editor when he was appointed in 2013 at the age of 29 'The one guaranteed way to harm Britain's fragile democracy and to ensure that the Scots will break from the UK is to vote in another confrontational, divisive Conservative government of the kind which has led us to the present turmoil.'