“Local Conservative party campaigners, including the chairman of one constituency association, will this week pledge their support for Nigel Farage after one of David Cameron’s allies described grassroots Tories as ‘mad, swivel-eyed loons’. Six members of the Tory group on Merton council in south London are quitting. One, Richard Hilton, who has been acting chairman of the local Conservative association, said he would join Ukip because the insult was ‘the final straw’.  Lord Howe, the former chancellor, claimed Mr Cameron was ‘losing control’ of the party to growing euroscepticism.”