The glee with which the Tories and Labour jump on any sign of UKIP discord is more flattering than anything, nonetheless it hasn’t been the smoothest week for the party. First their chief executive Will Gilpin threw his toys out of the pram and quit, dismissing members as “a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs”. Which is part of the charm, but still. Then Godfrey Bloom was at it again, informing us how “most women can find the mustard in the pantry quicker than a man and most men can reverse a car better than a woman”. His wider points about quotas and political correctness may have some merit, though the joke is wearing thin.

Cue Nigel Farage putting his foot down. He tells the Telegraph things are going to change:

“The party does need professional management but thus far we haven’t found the person to deliver it. I gave up all managerial control of the party in 2010, I gave it up to a new group of people and at the moment we haven’t got to where we need to and so therefore…I will now be once again taking back some direct managerial control of the party until I’m confident we’ve got the right people in place. I will have to do less politics, fewer interviews, fewer public meetings, fewer appearances and I will have to spend more time directly overseeing the jobs being done, because the problem we have had is one of non-delivery… We do need to get a grip on things. We do need to professionalise things and so I’m going to have to take a much more direct, managerial role.”

Which is probably a good thing…