Ukip splitters could hand victory to Labour

Following the defection of backbench MP Mark Reckless from the Conservatives to Ukip, it's worth noting that the combined Conservative and Ukip vote "comes to nearly half the national total", writes Daniel Hannan, a Tory MEP, in the Daily Mail. "Yet, as things stand, Ed Miliband is likely to become prime minister, with around 35% per cent support."

To stop that outcome, some form of deal between Ukip and the Tories would make sense. Although a formal pact may be "impossible... the case for local arrangements in key marginal seats remains".

After all, from "a Conservative point of view, a Ukip MP is surely preferable to a Labour one. From a Ukip point of view, it must be better to get an In/Out referendum than not." What's more, "it costs a party nothing to stand down in a constituency which it can't win".

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That said, the overall picture "is far from desperate for the Conservatives", according to Tim Montgomerie in The Times. "David Cameron is much preferred to Ed Miliband to be prime minister.

The Conservatives have a 25% lead over Labour when it comes to managing the economy", and welfare has become "a Tory issue partly because there is increasing evidence of a link between the growth in employment and Iain Duncan Smith's reforms."

Cameron should be careful though: "food banks, payday loans and fuel poverty have increased awareness of poverty and empathy with those who are struggling to escape from it", says The Independent.

Cameron would be "grossly deluded" to think that "aping the anti-European, little Englander mentality of Ukip is the royal route back into power".

Trouble is, the Conservatives may have already started down that road. In fact, far from being "reluctantly dragged rightwards" by Ukip, the Conservatives are "boldly going into the blue yonder, because that's where their yearnings take them", argues Polly Toynbee in The Guardian.

The further cuts outlined in Osborne's speech "divided young from old and low-paid from the wealthier with a pensions bonanza for their heirs". Does it make "political sense to cut nearly half of all households while claiming there is a recovery"?

Although the Conservatives used to be "a blend of wets and dries, with a realism about how far they could go", it seems that, "this party has lost its automatic stabilisers".

Perhaps both parties "quietly hope to lose" the next election, suggests Janan Ganesh in the FT. "A Labour government fronted by Ed Miliband will writhelike a tortured animal for five years as it tries to reconcile beliefs it cannot afford with spending cuts it cannot avoid."

A Conservative government might have an even tougher time. "Having threatened to break in two for the past couple of decades, the Tories might finally do it" over Europe.

Even a renegotiation of Britain's membership will not be enough for the many Tory MPs "who crave exit regardless". Sadly for the Conservatives, "there is little Cameron can do" to solve this problem.