Despite UKIP’s successes, David Walker assesses the wider challenges ‘protest parties’ would face in government – and the consistent work local government continues to produce in areas that don’t always make the news.

It’s a matter of when, not if, UKIP gets found out.

Found out, that is, in the sense of being seen to wield power and in doing so become like all other despised political parties.

Local government may be where the insurgents are first put to the test.