In Stoke, it would be hard to imagine a better set of circumstances for Ukip to fight a by-election, says The Times: a neglected Labour safe seat, so disillusioned barely half of people even bothered to vote in 2015; a seat which voted overwhelmingly for Leave, up against a pro-Remain Labour candidate who called Brexit a massive pile of s***; a seat abandoned by a metropolitan TV historian who had been parachuted into the area but now wants to run a London museum.
Yet somehow Nuttall and his team managed to contrive a situation where Ukip's self-styled salt-of-the-earth Scouse bloke had a grip on the truth looser than Nigel Farage holding his 10th pint.
In the event, Nuttall gained two thousand less votes than his party did at the general election, squeaking in at second place with less than a hundred votes more than the Tories. The unfashionable view of his performance is that he managed to get only 9.4 percent of the electorate to turn out and vote for him. This may be that "glass ceiling" of ten percent which prevents small parties from prospering.
However, it was not a good result for Labour. They lost just over four thousand votes, resulting in a new MP being elected on a 38 percent turnout. That means we have an MP sent to Westminster by 14 percent of the electorate. A democratic mandate this is not.
But if democracy is against the ropes, The Times allows their Matt Chorley to argue that the stage is set for Ukip to disappear from view. We can only hope that is true. A party that appointed Gerard Batten as their lead Brexit spokesman has nothing to offer and nowhere to go.
A win for Nuttall would have given this silly, vain little man an undeserved platform in an institution that is already badly tarnished. Adding his voice to the collective ignorance would not have been an improvement. In fact, it could only have done harm.
Under different leadership, there is a theoretical possibility that Ukip could make an intelligent contribution to the Brexit debate. But, since there is no prospect of testing that theory, perhaps the best thing that Ukip could do is follow the path signposted for it by The Times and disappear from view.
If it cannot make a sensible contribution to the debate, it is better that it makes none at all. There is too much noise already.
