The Ukip fox is in the Westminster hen house; headless chickens doesn’t even begin to describe the result. Even before the Euro election results were in (and I am writing this before knowing the outcome) Britain’s three main political parties were frantically casting around for responses to their mauling by Ukip.

A poll by Lord Ashcroft of 4,000 voters in marginal seats has shown that half of Ukip’s Euro voters were disenchanted Tories; of those, half expect to vote Ukip at next year’s general election. Labour is even more devastated because of Ukip’s incursion into its northern heartlands, while the LibDems are returning to their constituencies to prepare for irrelevance.

Even though LibLabCon knew this earthquake was coming, they seem at a loss about how