Peter Bone, the Conservatives and the UKIP Peril

Peter Bone, Conservative MP for Wellingborough, has been at it again. His latest contribution to British politics came today in the House of Commons where he demanded of Foreign Secretary William Hague a divorce from the Lib Dem "yellow peril" and the formation of a minority Tory government.

Hague, demonstrating why he's been put in a diplomatic role, declined Bone's suggestion saying that he "values enormously" the contribution of his Coalition allies.

This is of course not the first time that Bone has shown his dislike for the Lib Dems. But a few months back he was waging his own mini-campaign to clarify who would take over the country should David Cameron be removed from the equation in an unexpected fashion.

All this was no doubt aimed at Nick Clegg, who as Deputy Prime Minister might be assumed to be next in line at least in theory if not in practice, a thought that seemed to fill Bone with horror and disgust. Clegg shot back at Bone during his campaign, perhaps not unfairly, that he had a "morbid fascination" with the death of David Cameron.

The amusing thing about Bone is that he seems completely oblivious to the existence of the Labour Party opposition (understandable given its "leadership") and appears to have devoted himself to freeing the Tory party from the "yellow peril".

What Bone does not seem to realise is that the Lib Dems are not a peril to the Tories or to anyone else anymore.

At the last election Clegg ludicrously claimed that he wanted to be Prime Minister. At the next election he might well be counting himself lucky if he's still an MP. True the taxi full of remaining Lib Dem MPs in 2015 might well be needed by Labour or the Tories to form a majority in a close run election, but like last time they will go with the biggest party. Nationwide it will be a straight Tory-Labour fight.

It is here that the Tories are vulnerable. At the last general election the Tories failed to win despite a two year media bombardment of Gordon Brown and two years of great economic uncertainty.

At present the Labour Party, even under the unbelievable Ed Miliband, is consistently ten points ahead of the Tories in the opinion polls, a feat largely achieved by Chancellor George "political genius" Osborne and his amazing retractable Budget.

Yet just last year the Tories were soaring in the polls thanks to David Cameron's "veto". Now in fact Cameron did not stop the EU from doing anything at all, but just appearing to say no did wonders for his political standing, even if it was largely undeserved.

In the two way battle that is to come the Conservatives will need every vote they can get if they are to have any hope of forming a government in 2015. At the last election nearly a million people voted UKIP, a fact that may well have cost the Tories their majority.

Since that time UKIP's support has only grown, if the polls are to be believed, meaning that if Nigel Farage's gang did not prevent a Tory government last time, they almost certainly will next time unless the Conservatives wake up to the real peril, the "UKIP peril".