There's nothing like an official deadline to separate the serious Ukip leadership contenders from the wannabes. Steven Woolfe was infamously caught out by it, and the prospect of having to put your paperwork where your mouth is has already cleared out many contenders in this race.

Eight people have expressed their interest in succeeding Nigel Farage, but only four remain in the race. David Kurten, Bill Etheridge and Andrew Beadle all accepted that they had no realistic chance of stepping into Mr Farage's shoes, so decided not to waste everyone's time. Don't be embarrassed if you had to Google some of those names by the way. In fact, I'm not sure Google knows much about some of them.

Raheem Kassam, who had officially launched his campaign on Friday as the "Farage-ist" candidate, conceded this morning that he could not win as the "path to victory is too narrow".