Tory voters are disillusioned by David Cameron's style of government

The time will inevitably come, probably in the depths of next winter, when the Conservative Party leadership is finally forced to accept a truth that it has been desperately trying to avoid.

Facing the nightmare prospect that Ed Miliband will win next May’s general election - partly because hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of former Tory voters are so disillusioned by Mr Cameron’s style of government and by his version of Conservatism that they plan to vote Ukip - the party’s grandees will, I am convinced, make a humiliating U-turn.

Although they have doggedly refused to entertain the idea, they will have to consider an electoral pact with Ukip, or face at least five years out of government.

The man who, I believe, will have to tell Mr Cameron is his increasingly powerful adviser Lynton Crosby.

Already, the pressure is mounting, with the Tories’ electoral prospects looking increasingly grim.

First, the voting system is skewed in favour of Labour after Nick Clegg disgracefully broke a promise to support overdue reform of parliamentary boundaries.

Second, the continuing strength of support for Ukip, with most of its backers being disgruntled Tories, greatly enhances Mr Miliband’s chances of getting into Downing Street. Indeed, Ukip is registering 14 per cent of support in some voter surveys, and one poll this week suggested that Mr Miliband could become PM if just 9 per cent vote for Ukip.

Meanwhile, the Tories’ attempts to win back their traditional voters from Ukip don’t seem to be working.

For example, Mr Cameron’s ‘tough’ new immigration policy announced this week — a plan to cut welfare benefits to jobseekers from the EU — has rightly been seen as a cynical re-heating of old policies that, in any case, would be illegal under European law.

Such posturing to lure Tory defectors back from Ukip, I fear, will not succeed.

Mr Cameron’s other approach is to attack Mr Miliband.

Of course, he’s an easy target — having admitted last weekend that he ‘looks like Wallace [as in Wallace and Gromit], not a PM in waiting’. So, too, are his senior colleagues in the largely policy-free and incompetent Labour Party.

But the fact remains that Labour is ahead in the polls. And so we come to that solution which the Prime Minister has always adamantly ruled out: an emergency pact with Ukip.

While many in the Tory grassroots have been clamouring for such a deal for some time, the party’s leadership has had its head in the sand over just how disaffected many one-time Tory loyalists are.

Admittedly, Ukip hasn’t exactly been offering to engage in talks, but I now detect a willingness to come to an understanding with Mr Cameron in the interests not just of preventing a Miliband government, but to get some Ukip policies — mostly traditional Conservative policies — into a future Tory government.

Mr Crosby is the perfect man to engineer such an understanding. As well as his key role as Mr Cameron’s aide, I know he has close contacts with at least one leading figure in Ukip.

Although they have doggedly refused to entertain the idea, the Tories will have to consider an electoral pact with Ukip, under Nigel Farage, or face at least five years out of government

Although Ukip plans to fight every seat at the general election, I believe that it would be prepared to strike a deal in certain constituencies.

For example, in seats where the Tory candidate is a member of Better Off Out — a pressure group campaigning for Britain to leave the EU — Ukip’s leader Nigel Farage could instruct his supporters to vote for the Tory because he or she shares their views.

In return, the Tory leadership would ask its candidates to stand down in seats where Ukip has a strong following and a good chance of winning. Such constituencies are North and South Thanet in Kent, and Eastleigh in Hampshire.

As part of the pact, there is no reason why Mr Farage, if elected as an MP, shouldn’t be given a job in a Tory government where he would be able to push Ukip policies.

Indeed, he would be infinitely more acceptable to most Tories than another ‘marriage’ with Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems.

And so, if there is no massive switch back by voters from Ukip to the Tories, Mr Cameron’s closest advisers will be obliged, I predict, to persuade him that the best strategy is to bring Ukip into the Tory camp.

Together, the two parties polled more than 51 per cent of the vote in May’s elections, against 25 per cent for Labour. This proves that, at heart, we are a right-of-centre nation, and it will be both mad and tragic if Britain ends up with a Miliband government.

The onus is not on Ukip to take the initiative to seek an accommodation. It lies with the Tories, a party that shares many of Ukip’s views and is the one that could form a government.

That, in a democracy, is what statesmanship means.

If David Cameron is brave enough, he can harness Nigel Farage’s army to help him win next May.

And in doing so, he wouldn’t just keep himself in Downing Street, but would reunite a conservative coalition — which, I am sure, is really what the country wants.

How former BBC Director-General Greg Dyke has the cheek to ask politicians to keep out of the appointment of the new head of the BBC Trust is beyond me.

He was a Labour place man (along with Gavyn Davies, former chairman of the BBC’s governors) when his party was in power.

How does former BBC Director-General Greg Dyke, pictured, have the cheek to ask politicians to keep out of the appointment of the new head of the BBC Trust?

The BBC Trust must be scrapped and replaced by a board of governors under a universally respected chairman — there are still one or two people of merit who could be candidates.

And it must not devolve any of the Trust’s powers to the regulator Ofcom, which would just entrench state interference.

I warmly welcome the suggestion — leaked this week — that the Tories are in favour of a so-called ‘flat rate’ of income tax.

Under such a system, everyone would pay the same rate, middle-class families would not have to pay such punitive rates and it would make millions of people better off.

If pitched at the right level — say, around 30 per cent — it would also maximise revenues for the Treasury. As a result, tax would be shifted from income to consumption.

Another potential benefit is that people’s extra disposable income could help create more jobs.

Also, the scope for tax evasion and avoidance would be reduced and the army of bureaucrats at Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs could be axed, saving huge amounts of public money.

Why are we waiting?

Betty is absolutely right about Cameron’s sexism

Baroness Boothroyd, the widely admired former Speaker of the Commons, is leading a campaign against the downgrading of the job of Leader of the Lords.

This follows the salary cut forced on Baroness Stowell, who has just been appointed to the role.

Baroness Boothroyd, pictured, is leading a campaign against the downgrading of the job of Leader of the Lords

She is paid as a Minister of State, not as a Cabinet minister. Lady Boothroyd is right to highlight this issue — not only because it exposes an insulting attitude towards women by David Cameron (as the post was previously held by a man, who was paid more), but also his disregard for the Upper House, whose expertise he squanders.

The annual lists of books that politicians say they plan to read on their summer holidays is a cynical stunt aimed at convincing us that we are ruled by towering intellectuals. We aren’t.

Let me suggest some classic novels that might, however, be more suitable.

As the Prime Minister prepares to break the Coalition, he should read Graham Greene’s The End Of The Affair.

Ed Balls needs Dickens’s Hard Times; Nick Clegg ought to pick Decline And Fall by Evelyn Waugh; Boris Johnson would enjoy Samuel Butler’s The Way Of All Flesh; while Michael Gove should pack Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves. And Ed Miliband? The Idiot by Dostoevsky, of course.

I’ve never been a fan of David Willetts, whose flexible principles blighted his ministerial career, which ended last month.

However, he is right to encourage universities to buy their students’ debt.

David Willetts, pictured, is right to encourage universities to buy their students’ debt

It would incentivise colleges to provide courses that would lead to students getting good jobs and being able to pay back their loans.

Another idea would be to issue their own bonds to finance the loans. And as well as encouraging good universities to flourish, such an innovative reform would help drive bad ones to the wall.

Labour is in chaos over the future of the NHS and the care system.

Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham this week repeated the outdated mantra that no one should be allowed to ‘make a profit’ out of health care.