MADAM – I was amazed in the article about the Conservatives hoping to pick up Ukip votes in May to see that they want people like me back.

I thought we were “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” to name but a few of the Tories favourite insulting expressions about us.

Why would they even want us back in their numbers?

Of course, it is “numbers” isn’t it.

The Tories are genuinely struggling to attract votes and getting increasingly desperate over the issue.

Actual experience, as opposed to opinion polls, shows that if you vote Conservative, Labour get in whereas if you vote Ukip then Ukip take the seat.

Witness results in the last 11 by-elections where Ukip picked up two wins, and seven second places while the Conservatives came third in four, fifth and even sixth in one each.

Clear evidence that had even half of the Tory vote gone to Ukip then that party would have taken the seat but had half of the Ukip vote gone to the Tories Labour would still have taken it.

In other words ‘vote Tory get Labour but vote Ukip get Ukip’.

It should also be taken into account, which Lord Ashcroft seems to have forgotten, that people no longer trust the Tories to deliver on their promises; about 50 manifesto pledges broken, a ‘cast iron guarantee’ over the EU ignored, a pledge that any further transfer of powers to the EU ‘would be subject to a referendum’ but 43 were transferred in November without even a serious debate in the Commons to give but a few examples.

The truth seems to be that the only thing you can believe when a Tory speaks is that you can’t trust a thing they are saying.

And that, in short, Lord Ashcroft, is why I think you are being hopelessly optimistic if you seriously imagine that people who have deserted the Tories for UKIP would ever think about returning.

Greg Heathcliffe

Swindon