David Cameron: Tory MP's defection to UKIP 'senseless'

As the Conservative conference gets under way in Birmingham, Prime Minister David Cameron has said the defection to the UK Independence Party by Tory MP Mark Reckless was ''counter-productive and rather senseless''.

Mr Reckless told UKIP delegates at the party's conference in Doncaster: "People feel ignored, taken for granted, over-taxed, over-regulated, ripped off and lied to."

The party is also looking to recover from a ministerial resignation - Brooks Newmark had stepped from the cabinet, after a newspaper alleged the Conservative minister for civil society had sent an explicit photograph of himself to an undercover reporter posing as a female party activist.