George Galloway overturned a sizable Labour majority for the third time in his parliamentary career in the Rochdale by-election, triumphing with a 5,697 majority.

With previous election victories in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005 and Bradford West in 2012, it means no single challenger has stolen as many seats from the major parties in England at by-elections since the Second World War.

Ukip may well have enjoyed some success in the middle of the past decade – with Conservative defectors Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless bringing Tory voters with them in 2014 by-elections – but no single insurgent has come close to matching Mr Galloway’s hat-trick.

In fact, other than these Ukip candidates, only the deselected Labour MP Dick Taverne, who won a by-election in Lincoln prompted by his own resignation for his splinter Democratic Labour Party, has managed it even once. That was in 1973.