There are currently two general elections taking place. The first and more advertised is the fantasy election being conducted within the imagination of the political class, the BBC, the dead-tree press and the vast array of public bodies, quangos and similar running dogs of the consensual establishment. Their views are uniform: Europhile, PC, metropolitan, elitist and wholly divorced from real-life Britain. This virtual election is the one being reported in the mainstream media.

The second election is the one whose result will be reported in the early hours of 8 May – the first occasion on which all the elements cited above will finally come face to face with concrete reality. That reality may, at first sight, be deceptive. It is very unlikely, for example, to be a UKIP landslide; that party’s growth and influence will be more protracted and subtle than to produce such an outcome in 2015 (2020 may be a different story).

Nevertheless, UKIP is the historic catalyst in this election. It is the force that will transform British politics forever. It will not do so by winning a vast number of parliamentary seats, but it will inflict mortal wounds on the legacy parties, especially the Vichy Tories who are heading fast towards the dustbin of history. If you doubt this, just take a look at their conduct. While affecting to despise UKIP, they are obsessed with Nigel Farage’s insurgency, belatedly recognising its potency and squirming in their political death throes.

David Cameron, the man who will go down in history as the destroyer of the Conservative Party, has issued an appeal to those former Tory supporters who have defected to UKIP to vote for him at the election. Why, Dave? Surely you don’t want to sully your impeccable Europhile and PC record by courting the support of fruitcakes and closet racists? Dave said: “I’d say this election is not about sending a message, sending a point. It’s about choosing a government for this country.”

Wrong, Dave. Elections always used to be about choosing a government, but you and your “modernising” clique removed that choice from the British electorate by eliminating the conservative option and merging the three legacy parties into one social democratic entity posing as three separate choices. So, this election is indeed about sending a message, sending a point. That message is that you are Dead Man Walking, Dave, because you have betrayed your party and your country and we want no more of you. Are you getting the message, Dave? You will, by 8 May.

Throughout the political establishment and the complicit media the meretricious narrative is desperately shoring up the delusions of the outgoing ruling elite. The soothsayers are elbow-deep in pigeon entrails in which they read esoteric runes, telling them the auspices are good. Boris Johnson believes UKIP defectors are beginning to “come home” to the Conservative Party. Golly gosh.

The high priest of delusion, Dan Hodges, has declared in the Daily Telegraph that Nigel Farage “is fading away without a fight”. Uh-huh? That would be why he was the only party leader in the last television debate whose support rose in the polls after the broadcast. But what every conservative in Britain considered Farage’s spirited and long overdue denunciation of the ludicrous bias of BBC studio audiences was interpreted differently by Hodges: “Watching Nigel Farage standing on that stage on Thursday – railing against the bias of the BBC audience – was to see a diminished man.”

I’m glad you explained that, Dan, because in the pubs and other venues where Britons congregate the despised public thought they had seen a man of increased stature. But they, of course, are not participating in the virtual election being enjoyed by the elite, but only in the bog standard reality election on 7 May. The fact that Hodges has pledged to streak naked down Whitehall wearing a Nigel Farage mask and singing Land of Hope and Glory if UKIP passes the 6 per cent mark in the polls suggests that Whitehall is a place those of a sensitive disposition would be wise to avoid on 8 May.

And so it goes on. Both Labour and the Tories denounce the danger represented by the SNP when the world and his dog knows that if Alex Salmond leads a sizeable contingent of MPs into Westminster there will be Labour and Tory tarts swinging their handbags in every doorway in search of a coalition deal – and to hell with Britain’s defences and public finances.

Even on their political deathbed the Tories have not lost their arrogant sense of entitlement. Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative defending a modest 5,000 majority in Totnes, who is a defiant champion of same-sex marriage despite massive opposition among local people, has denounced the Coalition for Marriage as “bigots” because they leafleted her constituents reminding them of her commitment to the measure that David Cameron has called his greatest achievement as Prime Minister. The last

politician to play the “bigot” card was Gordon Brown – whatever became of him?

The Conservative Party has a death wish and, happily for all parties concerned, the electorate shows every sign of fulfilling that aspiration on 7 May. And a similar fate awaits the other legacy parties, in no predictable chronology, between now and 2020.