Mark Reckless and Nigel Farage last week after Mr Reckless left the Conservatives and defected to Ukip
And it flies in the face of a national poll which claimed the Conservatives had moved ahead of Labour for the first time in two and a half years after Mr Cameron’s tax cutting pledge at the Tory conference.
The poll is the first in Rochester, Kent, since Mr Reckless’ defection, and was carried out after Mr Cameron’s tax giveaway pledge, suggesting areas where Ukip is strong are yet to be won over.
When Mr Reckless announced he would call a by-election, Conservative chiefs were confident they would win. They believed maverick Mr Reckless lacked the credibility and popularity of fellow Tory MP defector Douglas Carswell, who is expected to retain his Clacton seat in Thursday’s by-election in the Essex seaside town by a big margin.
But the Survation poll shows Mr Cameron faces an uphill battle in defeating Mr Reckless next month.
Mr Reckless’ nine-point lead is far less than Mr Carswell’s massive 44-point lead in a Survation poll last month, but it means he is the early favourite to be Ukip’s second MP.
Today’s survey shows Mr Reckless on 40, with the Tories on 31 – 18 down on their performance at the 2010 Election in Rochester – Labour 25 and the Lib Dems a paltry two. Unlike Mr Carswell, Mr Reckless is no pin-up in his constituency. Only 25 per cent of Conservative voters say Reckless is a hero for defecting, half Mr Carswell’s rating in Clacton. And 31 per cent say he is a ‘traitor.’
Only 12 per cent said they will vote Ukip because they like Reckless: Carswell’s personal vote was nearly three times higher.
But they are sympathetic to Mr Reckless, who admitted he was once too drunk to vote in the Commons. A total of 48 per cent say it does not make him unfit to be an MP. Ukip’s popularity in Rochester is not driven by hatred of Brussels: local voters are only marginally in favour of leaving the EU by 41 per cent to 37.
The poll also suggests that if he wins, Reckless could hold on to the seat at the General Election.
Nearly nine out of ten Ukip voters said they would vote for him again next year.
Mr Cameron’s vivid warning that on polling day next year voters may ‘go to bed with Nigel Farage and wake up with Ed Miliband’ appears to have been rejected.
A total of 21 per cent Ukip supporters said it made them less likely to vote Ukip; 23 per cent said they were more likely to do so. Most said it would have no effect.
However, Tory voters said by a ratio of 39 points to one that it would deter them from backing Farage.
Survation chief executive Damian Lyons Lowe said: ‘If this snapshot of opinion in Rochester and Strood reflects the by-election outcome, the Conservatives will be worried. This seat is regarded as 271st in a list of the 650 parliamentary constituencies most likely to produce a Ukip victory.
‘If Mark Reckless is elected despite the Conservatives throwing the kitchen sink at the by-election campaign, other Conservative MPs may conclude it is safer for their political careers to defect to Ukip rather than stand and fight Farage’s insurgency.’
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Mr. Farage with Arron Banks, Ukip's new £1mllion donor, who switched to the party during the Conservative conference
Nigel Farage’s new £1 million donor pays a corporation tax rate of just 0.008 per cent on a multi-million pound insurance business, it can be revealed.
Arron Banks, a former Tory supporter who switched to Ukip during the Conservative party conference, has paid the Treasury just £9,000 in corporation tax over the past five years from Rock Services Ltd – despite making gross profits of nearly £117 million over the same period.
Last night Mr Banks, who is worth £100 million and has a controlling interest in a South African diamond mine, told The Mail on Sunday that the low corporate tax bill was the legitimate result of ‘offsetting administrative expenses against profits’.
He said: ‘Stick your offshore tax story where the sun don’t shine’, before adding: ‘Up the revolution!’
