Ukip beats Tories in Wythenshawe as Labour hold seat

So Ukip did come second in the Wythenshawe by-election (and Labour won, of course). David Cameron says the 4,301 votes (17.95% of the vote and a 14.5% swing) that John Bickley won wasn’t ‘the sort of break through that people were talking about’. The Prime Minister, who saw his own party pushed into third place with 14.5% (3,479 votes), did also say that ‘obviously messages are sent, and signals are sent and protests are made and governments should always listen to those things and I always do’.

Now, the usual caveat that you can’t extrapolate very much from a by-election in one constituency applies. But Ukip can reasonably claim that it is becoming the official opposition in the north when it comes to by-elections at least. And that it is now no longer a surprise when the party comes second shows how far it has come.

The real question, though, is who the party stole its votes from.