UKIP’s specialist academic Matthew Goodwin tells Guido that Clacton is a “dead cert” for the party and that he had briefed Douglas Carswell about this before he made his decision to quit. He claims that the seat is the most ‘kippy in the country. Intriguingly Goodwin confirmed he had briefed the Parliamentary Conservative Party about where UKIP were the biggest threat and Carswell had been at that presentation. Along with many others.

When Guido asked Farage whether there were any more Tory MPs in the pipeline he refused to say: “You buy the chap one pint and he asks for a second.”