THE Source was having an interesting conversation with one of UKIP's senior Worcester campaigners the other day, who revealed something every political party in the city has to know.

Talking about the party's rapid rise to prominence in May's city council elections, where it finished second in eight of the 11 seats it contested, he admitted next to no effort had gone into any doorstep campaigning.

"We didn't do anything really," he said. "We didn't try."

This fellow was particularly bemused about how the party nearly won Gorse Hill, where it put up "a paper candidate" and barely broke sweat, only to come 119 short of taking it from Labour.

Political tradition has it that the parties who put in the most effort, knock the most doors and try to connect with people on a personal level obtain the best results - as Worcester witnessed with the rise of the Liberal Democrats in areas like Claines over the last 20 years, and in more recent times the rallying of the Green Party in certain pockets of the city.

But the rise of UKIP appears for the first time to go completely against that safe, conventional wisdom.

With Worcester City Council in a position of 'no overall control', and the influence of UKIP growing, the party could end up in an unprecedented position of power at next year's elections if a breakthrough comes, and right now it seems inevitable.

And yet it appears to have required staggeringly little effort to get to this point.

If this doesn't worry the city's major parties, I truly don't know what will.

* HE'S often been described as a left-wing Tory, but maybe Worcester MP Robin Walker is onto something with his middle-of-the-road approach to politics.

One mystery Labour MP, who has gone nameless, told The Independent newspaper last week “if the Tories were full of people like Robin, they would win every General Election".

Praise indeed. Maybe David Cameron would be wise to use our man in his 2015 campaign - I can see the slogan now: "A Nation Full of Robins".