Ukip's leader Nigel Farage claimed his party has made a major breakthrough in British politics this week, gaining more than 100 council seats in the local elections. Ukip has consistently featured in the mid-teens in recent UK opinion polls (sometimes in third place ahead of the Liberal Democrats) but their share of the vote on May 2nd reached more than 20%. Meanwhile in the South Shields byelection, Labour held on easily to David Miliband's old seat, but the Lib Dems lost their deposit and finished only one place above the Loony party.
For Daniel Hannan, a fiercely Eurosceptic Tory MEP, the time is right for some kind of pre-election pact with Ukip to grant Britons a route to independence from Europe and to keep the Conservatives in power. He tells us that Nigel Farage is not putting on an act - and he should be taken seriously.
Joining Tom Clark to discuss these results are the Guardian's political commentator Michael White and our data editor James Ball.
Also this week: we hear from the US polling guru Nate Silver whose 538 blog on the New York Times correctly predicted the outcome in all 50 states at last year's presidential election. He's in London to promote his new book The Signal and the Noise. But could his methods work in Britain?
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