My 10/1 bet is looking even more promising

However you look at yesterday’s events at the Ukip conference it is hard to see how it has advanced the purples’ cause. Farage and his team were put under pressure from a hostile media and didn’t perform very well.

In fact they looked like a shambles. It was blindingly obvious that Bloom was a loose cannon and action should have been taken much earlier.

The party that has blossomed over the past year with very little media scrutiny is now moving into a very different era and you can see other Bloom-type “slut” stories emerging.

And if UKIP start to falter the main beneficiary will be the Conservative party. Spirits in the blue camp must have surged overnight.

There must be a real possibility now that UKIP support will start to ease back and the party will look a lot less attractive to CON switchers like PB’s Sean Fear.

Since their big success at the May 2013 locals there was a widespread view that UKIP would come out of next year’s Euro elections as the winner on votes. In August Ladbrokes made such an eventuality odds on favourite at 4/5.

That’s now eased to 5/4. In May I place a three figure bet at 10/1 that the Tories would get most votes and I’m beginning to think that it could be a winner.

For not only is UKIP on the decline but Labour is not faring as well.

As the chart shows the Tories have a good record in the EU elections coming top even in the dark days for the party of 1999 when Blair’s LAB was so dominant.

Latest price for next May’s election is 9/2 which looks value.

Mike Smithson