By Jon Craig, Chief Political Correspondent
As I left the count with UKIP's deputy leader Paul Nuttall after a nail-biting night at Heywood and Middleton, he said to me: "I need a pint of Guinness!"
The Guinness and the foaming pints of bitter favoured by the UKIP leader Nigel Farage will taste especially good today after a storming by-election victory in Clacton, and a photo-finish in the safe Labour seat of Heywood and Middleton.
Douglas Carswell's comfortable victory by 12,404 votes in Clacton was predictable, but is still an ominous warning to David Cameron and the Conservatives of the damage UKIP can potentially inflict on the Tories in next year's General Election.
But Labour's near-defeat in Heywood and Middleton, clinging on by just 617 votes after a recount demanded by UKIP, has already sent shock waves through the Labour high command and will reignite the criticism of Ed Miliband's leadership inside his party.
Bad tactics, bad strategy, bad leadership, his accusers will claim.
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Gallery: The UKIP History In Pictures
1993: UKIP is founded by Alan Sked in response to the Maastricht Treaty, which set out the modern day EU and paved the way for the Euro. He left the party in 1997 saying it had become a "racist party for the far-right". He is now the leader of New Deal, which has been called UKIP of the Left.
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1999: The party takes its first three seats in the European Parliament, under the leadership of the millionaire businessman Michael Holmes. Nigel Farage is one of those MEPs.
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2000: Michael Holmes resigns and Jeffrey Titford takes over as leader of UKIP. He leads the party to field 420 candidates at the 2001 General Election and secure 1.5% of the vote.
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2002: Former Conservative Roger Knapman takes over at the helm.
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2004: The party wins 12 seats at the European Elections, among the UKIP MEPs is the chat show host Robert Kilroy Silk.
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2005: Growing speculation Robert Kilroy Silk will take on the leadership comes to nothing and he announces he is leaving the party, calling it a "joke", setting up his own party, Veritas.
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2006: In a radio interview David Cameron calls UKIP members "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly". It's the same year Nigel Farage is elected leader with 45% of the votes. Mr Farage drives an armoured vehicle to the Conservative Party Conference demanding an apology.
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2009: UKIP wins 13 seats at the European Elections but Mr Farage steps down as leader so he can concentrate on preparing for the General Election.
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2010: Nigel Farage decides to oppose House of Commons Speaker John Bercow in Buckingham - not the done thing. He fails to win the seat and goes on to reject the party's manifesto as "486 pages of drivel".
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2011: Ed Miliband hits the campaign trail at the Barnsley by-election (pictured) but UKIP candidate comes second to Labour, indicating the party presents a challenge to both Left and Right.
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February 2013: Diane James wins UKIP's highest by-election showing with 27.8% of the vote at Eastleigh. The Liberal Democrats hold the seat.
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September 2013: MEP Godfrey Bloom quits the party after provoking a row when he called women party activists, who didn't clean behind their fridges, "sluts". It came shortly after he made a reference to "bongo-bongo land".
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May 2014: UKIP becomes the first party other than Labour or the Conservatives in more than a century to win the majority share of the vote in a UK election at the local and European elections. Mr Farage claims he delivered the "earthquake" he promised.
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August 2014: Conservative MP Douglas Carswell announces he is defecting to UKIP triggering a by-election in Clacton.
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September 2014: Conservative MP Mark Reckless follows Mr Carswell and defects to UKIP on the eve of the Tory party conference, triggering a by-election in Rochester and Strood.
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October 2014: Nigel Farage announces he has parked his tanks on Labour's lawns as he joins the campaign trail in Heywood and Middleton, where a by-election is triggered by the death of the Labour MP Jim Dobbin, on the same day as the Clacton vote.
Until now, Labour has complacently assumed that UKIP could unseat Conservative MPs but merely eat into Labour majorities in its safe seats in the north of England. That assumption has now been shattered by the Heywood and Middleton result.
Make no mistake, Labour got a horrendous fright in this former northern stronghold. At the beginning of the night, senior Labour figures were confident of victory and expected to win with a comfortable majority, with UKIP in second place.
But after it was revealed that the turnout was just 36% and not in the mid-40s, as they expected, I watched as the colour drained from the faces of the Labour campaign team.
They stared at the bundles on the tables in the centre of the room and saw that they were virtually identical in size.
As UKIP successfully called for a recount, Mr Nuttall declared that the margin between the two parties was 620 votes. He turned out to be almost spot on.
Last week, I went to Clacton on the day Prime Minister David Cameron paid a brief visit and inspected the sea defences being built to protect the coastline against storm damage.
But in a seaside constituency with an elderly electorate, the UKIP storm was always going to blow the Tories away.
Interviewed by Anna Botting on Sky News after his victory, Mr Carswell was gracious enough to admit that Heywood and Middleton was the more significant result.
After Clacton, though, the second UKIP defector, Mark Reckless, looks well placed to hold his Rochester and Strood seat in his by-election.
But Mr Cameron's Tory conference gag: "Go to bed with Nigel Farage and wake up with Ed Miliband", looks mistaken now.
That's because these two by-elections, held on the Prime Minister's birthday, have shown that UKIP is capable of damaging Labour as well as the Conservatives.
The lesson for Labour is that just talking about the NHS, as its Heywood and Middleton candidate Liz McInnes did, isn't enough. Voters want to hear about the economy and immigration too.
The lesson for the Conservatives is that trying to out-UKIP UKIP doesn't do any good. Why vote for a party copying UKIP policies when you can vote for the real thing?
The beer and Guinness enjoyed by Mr Farage and Mr Nuttall will certainly taste better than ever now.
But Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband will need a stiff drink after these two results. And their by-election hangover will last seven months, all the way to the General Election in May 2015.
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