The Labour Party may have swept to victory in Thursday's three by-elections but the big political winner of the night was the UK Independence Party (Ukip), which posted the best by-election results in its history.
Bolstered by last weekend's fostering row - which saw two foster carers lose three children because of their Ukip membership - the party came second in Middlesborough and Rotherham and third in Croydon North, leading Nigel Farage to claim his party is becoming "the second party in Northern England".
"Whichever way you look at it UKIP is on the rise," the Ukip leader said on Thursday night, celebrating the party's electoral surge.
"The political establishment is just going to have to wake up to the fact that Ukip is here and here to stay as a significant and rising mainstream part of British politics," the MEP later said.