Bar Maybe

"Kassam will also not hear any criticism of the South Thanet campaign itself, which he boldly declares to have been the “single best campaign ever, ever in British politics, bar maybe the Bradford spring”. If it were not for the SNP, he says, the party would have won around five more seats."

Presumably, then, those five or so additional UKIP seats would have been in Scotland, a proposition that is plainly and simply insane. But Raheem Kassam's claim cannot mean anything else.

If anything even more deluded, and certainly more profoundly so, is his suggestion that UKIP's Thanet South campaign was "the single best campaign ever, ever in British politics, bar maybe the Bradford spring".

Just for a start, it was by definition worse than every campaign that has elected anyone "ever, ever in British politics". George Galloway won. Nigel Farage lost.

An election campaign is not a dog show. It is a dog race. You cannot win on points, based on the ultimately subjective judgement of a panel of experts. You either cross the line ahead of everyone else, thus winning, or you do not, thus losing.

All winning campaigns are better than all losing campaigns, because they just are. Any winning campaign is better than any losing campaign, because it just is.

That Kassam fails to grasp this perfectly elementary reality, says all that needs to be said about him, about his master, and about their party.