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By Ray Fleming

Some of those who rushed to support the Ukip MEP Godfrey Bloom in his recently expressed views on UK development aid and Bongo-Bongo-Land may wish to reconsider their position after his attack this week on women and feminism. There is a school of thought in the Conservative Party that the best way to deal with the electoral threat from Ukip is to let them defeat themselves by the idiocy and emptiness of their opinions and policies. Mr Bloom, MEP for Yorkshire and Humber called feminists “shrill, bored, middle-class women of a certain physical genre” and said that although they are better than men in finding the mustard in the pantry they bother too much about men leaving the toilet seat up or wet towels on the bed. Mr Bloom, who has already been reselected by his party to stand at the European Parliament elections next year, is not alone in his views on women.

The party's treasurer, Stuart Wheeler, recently said women should not be promoted to company boards because they were worse than men at card games. Mr Bloom tried to broaden his point by saying that despite years of training in the arts and music women had achieved little.

He obviously hasn't noticed that this year's Last Night of the Proms, the most testing assignment of the season, will be conducted by a woman, Marin Alsop.