Ukip's performance in the local elections is extraordinary. Even at this early stage, the party has already beaten the (admittedly problematic) benchmark set by respected polling experts Rallings and Thrasher. It is doing very well indeed.

First, a caveat: they are still not winning anything. Their South Shields by-election result is impressive, but nowhere near enough to get them an MP. They are not taking control of councils. Ukip suffer from the traditional problem of small parties in British politics: the first-past-the-post system means groups with spread-out support have a hard time breaking through. Come in second place and it just doesn't matter how many votes you got.

But whichever way you look at it, Ukip's tally is undeniably impressive.


                                   [Live blog: All the latest from the remaining counts]

They continue to take votes from their natural home – irritated Tory voters. Three quarters of the party's gains so far have come at the cost of the

"Us politicians don't feel truly elected," Gbola, a Tory councillor, tells me sadly. "Deep down you wished you were there by the complete wishes of the people."

Gbola has been a councillor for nearly 13 years and has built up a decent majority, by "persuasion rather than imposing". He admits there is a problem with the way Britain does its politics, however, and it bothers him. "People in the third world want the vote," he adds, despite the fact they face wars and famine and corruption. "Not here!" Here, where the roads and street lighting are OK, no one seems to care.

There is something flaccid about local politics in this country. Something so thoroughly limp that the real veterans can see the biggest cliché of all coming a mile off. John, who's been doing this sort of thing for more decades than he cares to remember, spots it impeccably. Here is a scruffy looking house, with a white van parked outside. "He'll say it," John says, confidently predicting this was the sort of person who

Photo: Getty Images"When I met Nigel Farage we both had our dicks out. Mind you, it was the gents' toilet. Here, that would make a bloody good headline."

I'm talking to John, Ukip's organiser in Kingston, in a creaky and well-trodden watering hole in central London. It's the start of a self-imposed, masochistic mission of meeting Ukip foot soldiers face-to-face, in their natural environment (mostly the pub), and finding out if the party's as insane as it looks from the outside.

I decided on the mission after meeting Diane James during the by-election in Eastleigh. As Ukip candidate, she narrowly lost out to the Lib Dems, but she was easily the most impressive figure on the ballot paper: eloquent, professional and oozing competent. For the first time, you could see a workable party machine starting to form under the purple blazers and beer goggles. The eurosceptic party was rolling out an impressive pavement operation, as if they'd learned a few lessons about local campaigning from the Lib Dems. It seemed

Photo: Doc SearlsThe sun is shining on Conservative canvassers in Hemel Hempstead. They are well-organised and can afford to be cheerful – but frustrations about the coalition are threatening to dent their whopping majority.

The Conservatives know how to win elections in this part of the world. At the last local elections they increased their grip on Hertfordshire county council to hold 55 of its 77 seats. That was in 2009, when David Cameron was hoping to win an overall majority in the looming general election. We're in a very different political climate now, and the local Tories are on the defensive. There is a strong chance Labour could take back the area of Hemel Hempstead being canvassed on Monday night, just three days before polling day.

A small group of well-organised Conservatives have been dispatched to the area to try and work out who is planning on voting which way. The technique is simple: knock on doors, enquire about political sympathies, and either retreat quickly or, if the voter is

By Des Brown

Will Ukip capture Conservative council seats during the May 2nd elections? There are reasons to be doubtful. Despite the press frenzy around the party, their performance has not always lived up to expectations.

At the moment, it seems no more than a phantom menace.  It has no MPs, fewer council seats than the Greens and came second in a handful of by-elections the Conservatives had little or no chance of winning anyway. Even by historic standards, their performance is subdued.

Interesting fact: when the SDP was formed in 1981 as a breakaway from Labour, 28 Labour MPs eventually crossed the floor of the House and joined the new party. To date, not one Conservative MP has defected to Ukip, indicating they have no confidence in being able to win their seat at the next election under that banner.

Ukip is to the Conservatives what the far left is to Labour.  But the far left – George Galloway, Class War, the SWP etc – have never formed together to create a true party of the

We've spent a lot of time talking about the possibility of a Johnson getting into Downing Street - and now it's finally happened. Few expected it would be Jo Johnson, the unassuming younger brother of Boris, who got into No 10 first.

The mayor of London will have spent his breakfast musing over the headlines about the appointment of Jo Johnson, the MP for Orpington, being elevated to the government. He is David Cameron's new head of policy in No 10 and a full Cabinet Office minister.

Squint your eyes and view them from afar, and you might just mistake Jo for his elder brother. They both have the same blonde mop, although Jo's is tidier and more measured. Both went to Eton College. Both belonged to the Bullingdon Club while at university at Oxford. Boris and Jo are undoubtedly cut from the same cloth - even if Jo's waistline is not quite as expansive.

In one critical way, though, Jo differs from his elder brother. He is not ostentatious. He does not get himself stuck in zipwires.

Ever since Harold Macmillan told Britain "we've never had it so good", politicians have rightly been wary of good news.

Back then, it was the slow pace of recovery from the Second World War which brought howls of outrage against a prime minister trying his hardest to be upbeat.

The economic situation now is not especially rosy, either. So the Institute for Economics and Peace's surprising findings present a challenge for the ruling classes they would do well to ignore.

Its UK Peace Index concludes both crime and homicide have fallen significantly in the last ten years. Even the global financial crisis has not stopped the decline in violence. The evidence is clear enough: On this metric, if no others, Britain is turning into a nice place to live.

The problem is the British psyche is virtually incapable of accepting this to be the case. itself a side-effect of our not being very good talkers. Social anthropologists who have studied the English have cottoned on to this. We use grumbling

By Sarah Wootton

In the last few years the campaign to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults has been increasing in momentum. Britons continue to travel abroad to die and the law -following guidelines from the director of public prosecutions endorsed by MPs - effectively forgives compassionate amateur assistance to die.

Last week, Paul Lamb, previously known as 'L' to the media, lifted his anonymity as a member of the Nicklinson legal challenge. This legal case seeks to establish that in certain circumstances, it would be lawful on the grounds of necessity for doctors to directly end their patient's lives at their request. This reignited interest in the issues surrounding 'the right to die' and highlighted an interesting dimension of the debate: when assistance to die is legalised, who should have that right and where should we draw the line?

People often assume that Dignity in Dying would be fully behind this case; it's about the choice of how you die