To fight a mid-term bye-election as a government party is difficult. To fight when the sitting MP resigned and is awaiting sentence for a crime is very difficult. To fight when, on top of all that, the headquarters of the party is engulfed in a sleazy scandal involving sex and the abuse of women, when it is thought to have been run by angels and saints, is very difficult indeed. To fight, and in spite of all that, to win is a major political achievement. It is a triumph for the Lib Dem activists who remained steady under fire and it is a triumph for their party leader who remained focussed under a media onslaught. The Liberal Democrats have much to celebrate today.
So has UKIP. As their leader put it, to come second and beat the Conservatives into third place is, for UKIP, a win. The thrill it gives UKIP members up and down the country, will be as nothing beside the shock wave it sends through the Tories. The maths for Cameron are clear. His party, torn asunder by an unbridgeable gap between its pro and anti EU wings, cannnot easily capture Lib Dem seats now that Europe has been brought centre stage and it cannot capture them at all if UKIP is in the fray, as it will be, for sure, after Eastleigh. This means the Tories will not win a majority in 2015.
Labour will be disappointed at its performance, although realistically it was never in the race. They had a weak candidate who said silly things, but it would have made little difference if they had fielded a savvy political staffer. This was always a three way fight between the coalition partners and the rising star of UKIP. As it happens UKIP probably had the best and most presentable candidate.
Today the pundits will pore over the figures, extrapolate trends and project finite answers to an infinite puzzle. None of it will mean much because as always in politics, it is the unknowns of tomorrow that rule. Two things are becoming clear. The public are bored with the media obsession with sex scandals and split political parties, like split ships, sink.