The Tories are always denying that UKIP are a threat, but once again the cat has been let out of the bag. Over in Maidenhead they have suffered an embarrassing council by-election defeat at the hands of their LibDem counterparts. Simon Werner beat his blue opponent Catherine Hollingsworth by a grand total of eight votes, as the UKIP candidate took dozens of votes away from the Tories.  Council leader David Burbage in no doubt as to who is to blame:

“It is unfortunate that, largely thanks to UKIP, the residents of Pinkneys Green have missed out from electing a very effective councillor in Catherine Hollingsworth. The last thing that people who voted UKIP would have wanted would be a boost to the pro-EU Lib Dems.” 

Fast forward to 2015 and we could be seeing a similar thing on a much larger scale…