The first is that Ukip, once an amateurish shambles of a party, is getting better at the ground game. It has matched the Tory machine blow for blow in Rochester. Some 81 per cent of Rochester voters have had literature, direct mail, visits, telephone calls or emails from the Conservatives. And 84 per cent said the same of Ukip. OK, it’s one by-election, and Ukip would surely struggle to match the Tory effort nationwide. But it still suggests the insurgents are professionalising, quickly.