Earthquakes

The achievement of UKIP this weekend really is hard to overstate. As the media have been quick to trumpet, this is the first election in over a hundred years not to have been 'won' by either Labour or the Conservatives.

But this disguises a lot. In the two general elections of 1910, the Conservatives (just) outpolled the Liberal party, as it then was, but the Liberals held the edge on seats. So actually, the last election to have been clearly won by someone other than Labour or Conservative was in 1906, when the Liberals took 397 seats and 48.9% of the vote.

But the Liberals are sort of still with us, in the form of the much battered and bruised Liberal Democrats. So in actual fact, the last time a national election was won by anyone other than the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberals was... never. Since the advent of party politics in the late 17th century, with Whigs and Tories forming into loose blocs in Parliament, a broadly left wing group has faced a broadly right wing group. Even if the names have changed, or even the ideas espoused have changed, that has been a relative constant.

And there's more. Those victories by the Liberals were achieved in the days before true universal suffrage. No women could vote, and far from the entire adult male population could vote either. So, in fact, by taking 4.35 million votes, UKIP have the highest number of votes for a party which isn't one of the big three, ever.

Whether some of these will dissipate at a general election remains to be seen. Personally, I think it will. My money is still on an outcome. But everything is in flux, and British politics has indeed seen a bit of an earthquake.