Setting out his plan for fighting the election, Mr Allister told his party's second annual conference that TUV candidates would relentlessly "expose" his former party, the DUP.

Success in next year's election will be crucial to maintaining his party's momentum into the 2011 Assembly elections, where, if the TUV maintains current levels of support, it will win a substantial number of seats.

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Following Mr Allister's remarkable performance in June's European election, and given the ongoing troubles of the DUP, Saturday's conference saw around 250 people - an increase on last year's first conference - attend the six-hour meeting.

Mr Allister delivered a typically caustic critique of his unionist and republican opponents in a speech which lasted over an hour.

Referring to the upcoming Westminster poll, the former MEP told his supporters what his candidates will focus on: "There will be much for us to expose in that election.

"The scandal of expenses, which had brought shame on politics.

"The broken promises over double-jobbing. The neglect of representation of Ulster in Parliament - some Ulster MPs only manage a day a week in Parliament but take a full-time salary.

"The pitiful performance of Belfast Agreement devolution.

"The unworkability of the dysfunctional DUP/Sinn Fein coalition and the scandalous shredding of the solemn pledge in the DUP's 2005 manifesto that mandatory coalition...was 'out of the question'."

It is understood that TUV candidates for the election are to be chosen over coming weeks and formally agreed in January.

Mr Allister also said that the it was a "real and indelible shame" on the DUP that their MPs had voted in Parliament for a change to the Belfast Agreement which make it possible for Sinn Fein to get the First Minister's job.

He argued that the change made the St Andrews Agreement even worse than the original Belfast Agreement which had ensured that the applicant would come from the biggest tradition - unionism - rather than the biggest party.

He claimed that DUP leader Peter Robinson's "fingerprints are all over the change" because he hoped to use the threat of Martin McGuinness becoming First Minister to coerce unionists into voting for the DUP in future elections.

Mr Allister also took the opportunity to poke fun at a series of senior DUP figures for their lavish expense claims.

He directed barbed witticisms at Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson - who returned money to the Commons after claiming from his expenses allowance to watch films in hotel rooms - and highlighted the £300 claimed by Iris Robinson for a Montblanc pen and William McCrea who claimed £861 for a walnut desk.

East Belfast MP Peter Robinson, who claimed £1,300 for a 42-inch TV, "should have gone to Specsavers", he told party members, to guffaws of laughter from the audience, many of whom in a later show of hands said they had voted for the DUP in 2007.

The QC again laid out his vision of securing a "sufficient bridgehead of Traditional Unionist" MLAs at the next Assembly elections in 2011 so that, by refusing to enter the Executive, they would trigger its collapse.

Describing the Stormont set-up as a "shambolic and disastrous government", he said that Sinn Fein has no interest in governing well but is instead attempting to destroy the Province from within.

He accused Stormont of being "bloated" with spin doctors, 18 'special advisors' to ministers and extravagant waste, adding: "Apart from those who live off the political industry at Stormont, would anyone really miss this miserable, failing government?"

Bringing his marathon address to a close, Mr Allister said that he relished the chance to take on the DUP in North Antrim, where he will stand.

Evoking Biblical comparisons between himself and David challenging the Philistine giant Goliath, he said that he looked forward to the battle "whichever Paisley dons the armour of Goliath".