article_snippet.sent: Nigel Farage today insisted The Tories had suffered a 'hammer blow' after a former parliamentary candidate defected to Ukip - only for it later to emerge that Nigel Farage had already been sacked from the party last week.
article_snippet.sent: It is another hammer blow to Tory pretensions in the north of England'.
article_snippet.sent: Mike Whitehead claimed the scalp was 'another hammer blow' for David Cameron, just a month before the general election .
highlights_snippet.sent: But Nigel Farage this morning insisted it was a 'hammer blow' for Cameron .