Graphs at a glance: UKIP's 25% vote out of 36% turnout = 9.5% of all UK voters. This got them a third of UK MEPs, which amounts to 3 hundredths of all MEPs. What next?

In 2010 Nigel Farage was unkind to Herman van Rompuy. Herman Who? Herman was President of the European Council (to be clear, not the President of the European Commission nor the President of the European Parliament). Nigel asked the very relevant question "Who are you?".

To be fair to Herman, the same could be said of everybody in the European Parliament other than perhaps Nigel. A poll done for The Independent by YouGov in 2013 found 95% of Brits didn't know who their MEP was. (In case you actually are interested in what your MEP looks like, you can find them by clicking >here<)

UKIP's "victory" in the UK European election means they won

• 26% of votes cast in the UK European election
• 9.5% of all registered voters in the UK (voter turnout of 36% x 26% = 9.5%)
• A third of all UK seats (24 out of 73)
• Which amounts to three hundredths of all European Parliament seats (24 out of 751)

Graph by the FT

With less than 10% of UK voters and 3% of seats in the European Parliament, what was it Spiderman said? "With no responsibility comes great power"? UKIP has the power to promise anything, knowing it won't have to deliver. Having dismissed the UKIP 2010 manifesto as 'drivel', Farage promises to publish its 2015 election manifesto in September this year.

UKIP's power is not to win the 2015 General Election, but to influence who loses it. If UKIP comes up with manifesto policies that would reverse the enrichment of a tiny minority in Britain to the detriment of the great voting majority, that may actually force the hands writing Labour and Conservative manifestos to do the same.

Juncker

Meanwhile, back in Europe, Martin Schulz and Jean-Claude Juncker are the leading candidates to be the next President of the European Commission. To help you recognise them, should the need arise, they look a lot like these more memorable characters:

Schulz