Two of the biggest cogs in the Conservative election machine rolled into Tolworth this afternoon to support candidate James Berry.

David Cameron and Boris Johnson joined children at Advantage Day Nursery, in Red Lion Road, for jigsaw puzzles and hand painting – with blue paint, naturally.

Surrey Comet:

During the media scrum, one child was said to have asked Mr Cameron: “David, why are all these people taking photos?”

A steady trickle of bemused parents came and went as security officers and TV journalists took turns to hold open the door. One, Yasir Mahmood, said that on a weirdness scale from one to 10, the event ranked at 9.5.

The Surrey Comet reminded the Prime Minister of a promise he made during the last election campaign: that under his government, Kingston Hospital would have a safe future.

Hospital bosses announced last month that they had been forced to run the trust at a deficit due to “extreme pressure” on cash flow. Refurbishment of the accident and emergency department has been postponed.

Mr Cameron told the Comet today: “I’m here again to say the same thing, that we’re investing in this hospital, it’s got an excellent set of services. Maternity is very, very strong.”

Pressed on why, after five years of his leadership, the hospital has red ink in its ledger, Mr Cameron added: “After five years of this government there are 3,000 more doctors in London, there are 2,500 more nurses in London, there’s more money going into the NHS in London every year, and we have promised to fund the Simon Stevens NHS plan in full in the next parliament, which means an extra £8bn at least.

“That will help Kingston. At the same time we need to take pressure off our acute hospitals by making sure that we have seven-day opening, 12-hours a day for our GP surgeries and that will be in place for everyone in our country by 2020.”

Kingston and Surbiton is one of the Tories’ highest-priority targets, but unseating Liberal Democrat incumbent Ed Davey – who has a 7,560 majority – will be tough.

Asked where he thought the weakness lay in Mr Davey’s offer to the area, Mr Cameron said: “The weakness is this, that if you vote Liberal Democrat you could just as easily end up with Ed Miliband and the SNP running our country as with any other outcome.

“The problem with that is that the projects here in London would be under threat because you’d have the SNP calling the shots in a weak Labour government, and they don’t care about what happens in London.

“They don’t care what happens in Kingston because they don’t want the United Kingdom to be a success.”

Surrey Comet:

Stay on target: Boris Johnson and David Cameron in Tolworth

Back outside, and looking on from the far side of the car park, were Kingston food bank workers and Christian People’s Alliance candidate Daniel Gill.

He said: “It would have been good if he could have popped in to see the food bank administration offices while he was here.”

Kingston’s food bank today released its figures for help given to people in need in 2014/15, which showed the number of emergency food packages handed out had increased yet again, to 5,847 from 5,492 in 2013/14.

However, that number is lower than the 6,150 that was forecast last September.