Local - Part 2 Vote 2014

UKIP are celebrating a strong showing

in the local elections in England, picking up around 25 percent of the

UKIP has yet to take control of a council, but it has already exceeded

its target of 80 new councillors, with only a third of authorities

It's been a mixed night for Labour, whilst the Conservatives

and the Liberal Democrats have both seen their share of the vote fall

Early estimates suggest a turnout of about 35 per cent.

This morning Nigel Farage said "the UKIP fox was now in the

Let's have a look at where we are so far.

And you can see that UKIP has made a net gain of 86 seats,

Essex is the county where UKIP did particularly well ` gaining 31 seats

in Basildon, Southend, Thurrock, Castle Point and Harlow.

It also did well in the north ` making 10 gains in Rotherham.

Labour have gained 102 seats so far, the Conservatives have lost 97

In terms of councils ` Labour are making limited progress,

The Conservatives have lost control of eight authorities ` including

And the Lib Dems have lost control of Portsmouth `

Our political correspondent Chris Mason reports.

Sunderland prides itself on the speed of

its vote counting and if that means legging it across the count centre

Yes, some local authorities are a tad more laid`back

So far, those wearing purple rosettes are

Really good, solid performance from UK and across the country. That is

the big thing, knowing big Tory, Labour areas we scoring

consistently. Very pleased. We're far from complacent. We recognise

the alienation and anger expressed by people voting for UKIP last

night, but we are well placed to do the right things in the coming 12

months to win the general election. Of course for people voting for

UKIP, there are big issues of concern that need to be addressed,

whether it is immigration, welfare reform or are relationship with the

The Lib Dems are getting another kicking, but they have had quite

a lot of practice putting a brave face on it.

What are looking at is how well we are going to do

in the seats where we are strong, where we run the local council or

This is what the middle of the night looked like in

Birmingham, but there is plenty more scuttling around, number crunching,

We will be speaking to Michael Gove in a moment. We heard from Nigel

Farage earlier. Very good, a good response across

the country, we're scoring consistently in the 20% area. You

say across the country, but there is a failure to break in London. London

is our weakest area, so much of politics is about voluntary

structures, and our voluntary structure is 12, 18 months behind

other parts of the country. Do not get too skewed by the London

results, most of the wards have three members, and in most, we only

fielded one candidate. We only fielded one candidate. We're but not

as much as the suggest. Some people said that you would get 80 seats,

how many do you think you will get now? We have done that already, it

looks like it would be double what the experts predicted. It is a very

good night for UKIP. Some Conservatives are calling for a

packed with macro in the next general election, what you think?

There are to conversations going on, one was where the Labour leader in

Swindon were saying, we have been hurt by UKIP, another was happening

in Rotherham for UKIP won ten seats and Labour won six seats. In the

West Midlands, the Labour Party said UKIP is splitting the vote and

letting the Tories them, so this idea that UKIP vote just hurts the

Tories, that will be blown away by this result. No pact with the

Tories? They have always viewed as being members of the lower orders,

so that is totally unlikely, but if we were to poll UKIP voters and

said, do you want a pact with the Conservative Party, only a very

small percentage would say yes. Are you a force to be reckoned with for

the general election? If you look at how Paddy Ashdown took the Lib Dems

fought in the 1992 election, you can see last night, there are bits of

Essex, bits of Rotherham, there are areas cost the country where we now

have an imprint in local government and we are under the first past the

post system, so we are serious players, so over the summer, we

would choose our target constituencies and threw the kitchen

sink at them. What you think this means for the results for the

European elections? I would have thought that a lot of people would

still vote for the local councillor because they have represented them

for the last 20 years, but with the second vote, they may have voted

UKIP in the local election, so at the vote across the country, without

wishing to count any chickens before they are hatched, it looks pretty

good. So you are happy this morning? Yes, my colleague Winston McKenzie

said the UKIP Fox was in the Westminster hen house and it feels a

bit like that. Let's go to UKIP headquarters. Nigel Farrage said

that they were serious players, it makes everything unpredictable if we

are into four party politics. Yes, the classic phrase about the UKIP

Fox being in the Westminster henhouse, he has more than ruffled a

few feathers, he has forced the other established parties to think

very seriously about the kind of threat that UKIP is posing now and

will pose at the next general election. What we have seen

overnight, UKIP have made significant gains in Essex in

particular, costing the Conservatives control of councils

like Basildon and Thurrock and Castle point, they made significant

gains in places like Rotherham and Portsmouth. They have not done as

well as they would have liked in London. They do not control any

councils yet. They have certainly now established themselves as a

party that they have to be reckoned with. We heard spokespeople, shadow

ministers, accepting that they will have to respond to what has

happened, the why voters have turned to UKIP. The difficulty for the

Labour Party, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems is that they may well

be able to come up with some tougher policies on Europe, immigration,

they might be able to toughen the language, but what would be

difficult to counter is this sense that UKIP have come from outside,

that they are the voice of the people that had been forgotten by

the established parties. The difficulty for the established

parties is how they respond to that. They know that Nigel Farage

has managed to tap into a sense of discontentment, disenchantment that

is going to be very, very difficult indeed to counter, but that is

certainly the effect of the results we have seen overnight, and of

course, UKIP could enforce its strength when we get the results

from the European elections on Sunday night. Questions for all of

the main parties, we both speak to Michael Gove in a moment, it on your

screens, you can see that the count is continuing, and the current

account is that the Conservatives have lost 97 councillors so far in

the counting overnight, and they have lost control of eight councils,

Karel was talking about Basildon, UKIP doing well in Essex, that has

hurt the Conservative vote there. Let us speak about the ramifications

with Michael Gove. Good morning. In terms of the results so far, one

third so far, your party has had a bit of a kicking. Yes, it is

disappointing, I'm very sorry about the fate of a number of very

hard`working councillors that have lost their seats. And

congratulations to those that have won. There is a clear message.

People are angry about an umber of issues. They want answers. I hope in

the next 12 months that people will recognise the concerns are being

addressed by the government, but it is important that we demonstrate in

the next 12 months that we are taking these concerns seriously and

redoubling efforts to make sure that whether it is immigration or a

relationship with Europe that we take a sufficiently tough line. I

take it you do not dismiss this as a protest vote, it is possible that

people have looked at various policies on offer and thought, no,

thank you. It is a clear expression of anger and concern and we have to

respect the way that people have voted this way, and people would

have voted for Labour in far larger numbers if they agreed with them,

they have not, they have chosen to vote with UKIP, and given the issues

they have campaigned on like immigration and as they see it, the

misuse of taxpayer 's money allocated to welfare, these are

issues that are absolutely at the heart of the government's reform

programme, but it is clear that we have got to demonstrate in the next

year that we are doing more to deal with these concerns that people have

seen so far. Does it show you cannot win outright in 2015? I don't think

so, it is the case that in the next general election, the Tories could

win out the right, and when people choose to vote UKIP they are saying

that they are not happy at the moment with what they see around

them, but at the election, there will be a straightforward choice

between David Cameron and Ed Miliband for Prime Minister, and

there is no evidence of a grand swell of enthusiasm for Ed Miliband,

there is evidence that the issues that people are being concerned

about are being addressed by David Cameron. In terms of UKIP and then

taking votes from the Conservatives, white you think that has been? Do

people just not listen to the Prime Minister about him speaking on the

dangers of UKIP, or was he not robust enough taking a Nigel Farage?

It is important to recognise that they have taken votes in Rotherham

as well as Essex, across the country they did well, so it lets us know

that you cannot say that you kick voters are the Tory party or the

Labour Party or the Labour Party are know why they are taking votes? I

know why they are voting UKIP, but it is important to suggest that it

is not any particular party that is voting out. You're being damaged, if

you look at what happened in Essex. We will see in due course, but the

evidence is that Labour has been just as badly damaged, because one

year before the next election... You say to that principally the concerns

of voters, potentially, it is about looking at a packed with UKIP is

that worth looking at? No, your questions are having a Westminster

consistence, how can you say to these people, come back, you belong

to us? I think that is wrong. Voters do not belong to political parties,

the do not belong to political parties,

government belongs to voters and we need to listen to these concerns.

People are tired of the coalition, they think you have run out of

steam. We looked at the issues. This are the issues affecting people.

These specifics about any government, the coalition

government, which drives people to vote for UKIP, that is concerned

about immigration, the European Union, the next generation being

prepared for a competitive world, the economy, nobody would disagree

that those are the issues. If they are the issues driving voters

stories UKIP, the question for us is, are we in each of those areas

meeting the concerns people have? We need to make sure that we offer

people a renegotiated position in your up, so we can say that this is

a Europe that we feel the people of Britain can be confident. We are the

only party capable of delivering a referendum. Thank you for your time.

The position from the Conservatives. We have been looking at Labour

through the course of this morning, because they have made gains, but

perhaps not the gains they really need if they are going to succeed,

with about a 3% rise in from the last general election. Let's head to

one of the areas they need to do well in. What is the picture there?

It has been an incredibly disappointing night here for Labour.

It was one of the key places it said it was going to do well. The

expectation was there but it did not get the results it was expecting. Ed

Miliband was campaigning every hard here at the beginning of the week.

He was speaking about the minimum wage and education, but that speech

did not make the impact I think he hoped it would. They needed three

seats to win here but they only got two, and it was not just this area

that Labour did not get the results it was hoping for. Also in

Staffordshire we are expecting a control when will stop it did not

happen in Gloucester either. `` a controlled win. More interestingly

is UKIP, which you have been hearing a lot about this morning, they did

incredibly well across the region. And oddly they gave seven seats. ``

seats. It was not all good news for them. Coventry, Stratford and

Gloucester, this places, UKIP did not make any gains.

Thank you very much. Paul Nuttall is the Deputy Leader of

UKIP and joins me now. We are hearing about gains in the

North. Is this a sensible goal? We are pretty much on target. We will

more than achieve our aim. On the whole it is looking good. To you

think that you have laid to the fears of people in any way,

prejudice, fear? What we have done is highlighted some possibly

unpalatable facts, but they are faxed after all. Our local

candidates have gone out and campaigned on local issues, and we

expect to go on and get a good number of counselors today. We are

the outsiders. Do you think you will really change things at local

level? Under one knows about your policies on immigration and social

services. `` everyone. Even those people who are planning to vote for

you. The party is doing really good for communities. `` really well for

communities. Those who are elected today will do a great job as well.

What they are hoping to do is get a real base in local government before

we go on and target the general election. Throughout the course of

the campaign, we solve racial slurs, homophobic comments. Let me ask you,

because normally that's damages parties, why do you think you have

been immune to that sort of damage? I think it is because people have a

none the fact that this is not just normal scrutiny. This has been a

witch hunt. 17 counselors up and down the country have been arrested,

charged or convicted in the past week alone with all sorts of

misdemeanors. You don't read about it in the national newspapers,

because of that is UKIP, everyone would know about it, and people are

seeing that this has been a witchhunt. Because of the British

spirit and because Britain likes the underdog, they can see that UKIP

have been bullied and a lot of people have voted as a result. We

were speaking to the Education Secretary earlier. Are you now

targeting Labour voters, working`class voters? Is that a

danger to Labour? Labour have lost 5 million voters since 1987. A lot of

these voters are potential UKIP voters and we have started to target

that more, and we have taken seats in the West Midlands. We saw a

decade or so with the Green Party making gains in the Westminster

parliamentary seat and then hitting a plateau. Nigel Farage was talking

about holding the balance of power in 2015 at Westminster. Is that

realistic at all? The Green Party never reached the percentages that

we are reaching at the moment and I don't think they have ever had the

number of counselors that we will have after today. Come Monday, we

could have gone on and won a national election. We are not part

of the establishment. I think this is the most exciting political

movement since the birth of the Labour Party. Thank you for joining

me here at Westminster. Let's head away from here. Let's go

to my colleague you has been speaking to voters in Swindon, where

the Conservatives have increased their majority. Good morning. The

Conservatives `` the Conservatives have increased their majority. The

turnout has been pretty poor, around 36%. Let me introduce to one of the

people who did vote. That morning. Who did you vote for? I've voted

Labour. We have several good candidates for the Swindon area and

they were very hot and community issues and I think that is

important. What is important to you? `` to it you? Local issues are

important. Why is it important for you to vote? It is important for

everyone to vote and guy was shocked at the turnout. `` I was shocked at

the turnout. We have 200,000 people in the Swindon so I do not know why

the turnout was so low. How do you think the political parties can get

more people to the ballot box? They have got to get right to the heart

of what people want and how counselors are perceived. There is a

lot of perception that perhaps the councils are not well behaved and to

not act in the community interest and they like the sound of their own

voice. What are your feelings about Europe? I am not sure if we should

stay in. We pay them an awful lot of money and there are arguments as to

whether or not we should stay in, but I think there should be a

referendum on that, and we will see where it goes from there. Thank you

so much for joining us this morning. Interestingly, people will be

watching Swindon very closely ahead of the general election next year,

because it is seen as a bellwether constituency. For the past 30 years,

the MPs here have been from the same party as the Prime Minister.

Let's crunch some numbers. With me is Professor Tony Travers,

Local Government Expert We have had just over a third. What

do you make of it so far, the big picture? You are UKIP taking voters

from? Certainly the Labour Party in the Conservative Party. The

Conservative Party in some parts of the country, clearly in ethics, and

the Eastern fringe of London, but UKIP is also doing well against

Labour in the north and places where Labour is dominant it is clear that

UKIP are going into second place or in some councils winning, which is

remarkable. All of these numbers coming in all through the course of

this morning and this afternoon. For each of the main parties, Tory,

Labour, he `` Liberal Democrats... If the Labour Party cannot win so

many seats that would be bad. For the Conservatives, they are going to

lose seats, and the question is, how many? If they lost more than 300

that would be bad for them. The Lib Dems might lose half the seats they

hold. It looks as though that might happen. In the end, you are looking

at grand tallies and comparing what happens against expectations, but

UKIP is the interesting one. Nobody knew quite how to predict them and

they are going to exceed even the most exotic expectations. It is a

real conundrum. In terms of understanding why, with all of the

controversies, and I do not need to list them, but despite all of that,

they seem immune to any kind of electoral damage. It looks to me as

if this is because they are a party which, by their mistakes, make them

look authentic. All of the other parties are carefully managed and

everything they say is cautious. When UKIP says and does things and

it looks a bit jagged and odd, it just looks like they are real, and I

think that authenticity is something that helps them. Is that sustainable

into next year given we have had two sets of elections where they have

done extremely well? Is that sustainable into 2015, because they

are talking about breaking the mold. For party politics makes everything

very, very collocated. It really does. What is interesting about

these local elections, certainly in England, if UKIP do really well, as

they appear to be giving, it suggests they might start to pick up

some general election seats. They will do well in the euros. It is

much easier to win seats there. These elections do tell us something

about UKIP's potential to win next year. They may not win lots of seats

but they might win some. Thank you very much for you the `` thank you

very much. We were in Croydon a little while ago. Let's go back to

our correspondent. Take us through it.

There has been a handshake here from the Conservative leader of ``

Conservative leader. Celebrations all around, reflected across

London. They also one in Hammersmith. A swing of 11 votes. To

complete an impressive evening, they took Redbridge, we have heard about

for the first time ever in history. The Conservatives have taken

Kingston from the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems only had two counsels

going into this and now they only have one, everyone expected

something from UKIP out east. We are awaiting results. Ten councils have

been counting overnight and the rest will come in over the course of the

day. The picture here, reflected across London, Labour celebrations.

Thank you very much. Let's give you a few pointers. More results coming

in right through the course of this morning. A real flurry in the

afternoon. And you can find council results

for your area, and across And later today David Dimbleby will

have more coverage of the local council elections,

as ballots continue to be counted. That's in a special programme,

Vote 2014, on BBC Two and the Monday marked coverage later in the

day. `` plenty more coverage later in the day. Back to you in the

studio. Oddly a third of the seats, counted so far. `` only a third. Act

with Matthew soon. The US Coastguard searching for four

sailors from a missing British yacht says it will call off their search

tonight, if nothing is found. Relatives of the yachtsmen say they

remain hopeful and have told the BBC that the RAF Hercules involved

in the search will continue for another 24 hours after the US

coastguard search finishes. The search goes on for four men who

went missing a week ago. These pictures were taken aboard one of

the many private yachts, as crews have abandoned their own journeys to

join the search. Searching alongside them, a US, Canadian and British

vessels, of long `` along with merchant ships. The US Coastguard

has given their teams just one more day to find something or the search

will be called off. They also confirmed that debris found earlier

did not belong to the yacht. Unfortunately, we have had no

sightings thus far and have concluded that none of the debris or

objects located during the search have correlated to the missing

vessel. Andrew Bridge, James Mail, Paul Gosselin and Steve Forren where

returning from an Tiga. A US Navy warship and the US

Coastguard ship are just the latest vessels to join the air and sea

search. The US Coastguard says it is keeping the families of the men

quickly informed. Thailand's military chief has declared himself

in charge after a military coup. More than 100 political figures have

been summoned to army headquarters and a number of pro`government MPs

have gone into hiding. Has been widespread international

condemnation of the action. Scientists in the United States say

they have moved a step forward in creating a vaccine for malaria. They

studied a group of children in Tanzania as part of the research.

More than 600,000 people die of malaria each year. More details from

Westminster shortly, but first, let us get the weather forecast from

Carol. Good morning, how wet started the

day, some of us will have some bright spells and some sunshine. See

a bit of rain. An area of low pressure. As we go through the rest

of the day, the rain across the North of England will fragment and

turn more showery and will brighten up across parts of Scotland and

Northern Ireland with some showers. The rain will persist in the north

and in the south`west. It would be gusty on the coastline. Temperatures

in the sunshine reaching 17 degrees to 19 degrees. This evening and

overnight, showers will fade away, but low pressure dominating. It will

not be a cold night. Into the bank holiday weekend, mixed sums it up.

Some showers, some sunshine, feeling pleasant in the sunshine. More

details on the BBC website. Good morning,

this is BBC News with Matthew Early results

from the local elections in England The party has taken around 25 per

cent of the vote so far where it's standing, taking seats

off the Conservatives and Labour. There are areas

across the country where now we have an imprint in local government `

first past the post system ` What we will do this summer is

choose our target constituencies UKIP's success comes

at the Conservatives expense In Essex they lose control

of four councils. Labour is making gains,

but the Liberal Democrats brace themselves for heavy losses

as they see their vote fall. The US Coastguard will suspend

the mid`Atlantic search for four British sailors

if nothing is found by tonight. The RAF will continue

for an extra 24 hours. Thailand's senior politicians are

ordered to report to army chiefs a Scientists in the United States say

they're a step closer to developing an effective vaccine against

malaria. Several billion barrels of oil is

held in shale rocks under in parts of Kent, Sussex and Hampshire,

according to a report due out this morning. Extracting it would involve

the controversial fracking process. all the time. One third of the

results in so far. UKIP are celebrating

a strong showing in the local elections in England,

picking up around 25 percent of the UKIP has yet to take control of a

council, but it has already exceeded its target of 80 new councillors,

with only a third of authorities It's been a mixed night for Labour,

whilst the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have both

seen their share of the vote fall Early estimates suggest a turnout

of about 35 per cent. This morning Nigel Farage said

"the UKIP fox was now in the Let's have a look at where we are

so far. And you can see that UKIP has made

a net gain of 89 seats, Essex is the county where UKIP did

particularly well ` gaining 31 seats in Basildon, Southend, Thurrock,

Castle Point and Harlow. It also did well in the north `

making 10 gains in Rotherham. Labour have gained 105 seats so far,

the Conservatives have lost 97 In terms of councils `

Labour are making limited progress, The Conservatives have lost control

of eight authorities ` including And the Lib Dems have lost control

of Portsmouth ` Those are the results so far, let's

speak to Sir Malcolm Bruce. A difficult night for you. It was,

losing seats is always painful especially for councillors that did

a good job. In government you have to take difficult decisions. At the

moment, people are seeing the benefit of the sustainable recovery

we put in place. We had good results in key seats with sitting MPs. We

have increased our vote in places like Dorset, Colchester, Eastleigh,

Sutton, Birmingham, Redcar, these are seats with Lib Dem MPs were the

lead has held up or improved. You lost in Kingston, Portsmouth, over

100 councillors have lost their jobs, isn't that complacent? Your

vote is down 13%. I accept that. It is disappointing. In Kingston and

Portsmouth there were difficult circumstances involving local

personalities, local elections have a local effect. In Sutton, we

increased our majority, Eastleigh was a seed that UKIP said would be a

target, Nigel Farage spoke about standing there. We have seen off the

UKIP challenge. White you think that you are being punished? We have the

ability to reach the entire population with our record in

government. We have increased the tax threshold to ?10,500. I have

stood your wits interviews for the last two or three years, and you

have said that for the last few years, the trouble is, people are

not heard it. `` I have stood here doing interviews. People have heard

it and responded to it very positively, the problem in areas

where we will less well organised, we had the full wrath of

appointments with stronger organisation. What if Harriet Harman

is right on the tube betrayed your supporters and backed the Tories try

to the hills, that would show that Lib Dem supporters have backed away.

Labour have not got a chance to win the next election, that is just

bitterness because the Labour Party thinks it is our job to support

them. Our job is to do the right thing in the national interest, and

our policies on tax, apprenticeships, supporting

disadvantaged children, they are progressive, liberal policies that

are popular but they are understood and labour should be supporting

them, not criticising them. Lynne Featherstone, your colleague, she

said that people support UKIP. Well, Nigel Farage has got a blog is

personality, people support that, but in places like Europe, building

a strong economy, having an economy where people can get on, that is

something the Lib Dems have achieved. Who knows the many

hundreds of councillors he will you lose by the end of the day, and the

Lib Dems, even if he clings on, Nick Clegg is finished as a leader?

Absolutely not, we joined the coalition, we voted it as a party,

we supported as a party, Nick Clegg has led us with resilience and he

will follow it through. This is a partial wipe`out. We have to wait

for the next election to the people want to build on the recovery we

have built or blow it away. When they realise what we have done, they

will support us, and today where they have heard of, they have. Let

us turn to Labour, they made gains, not particularly heavy gains, not

done as well as they are some of them hoped Graham Stringer, he had

tacked his party. `` he attacked his party, he outlined what he thought

his party had not done better. These local elections are against the

background of the European elections, and it is just not an

attractive policy to say, vote for us, trust us, but we do not trust

you to vote in a referendum when 80% of the electorate want that. The

campaign itself has not been professional, the centrepiece for

this campaign has been the cost of living, and yet, Ed Miliband did not

know his own cost of living, he did not know how much you are spending

on shopping. Well, really, people around him should have said that

when David Cameron was attacked as a when David Cameron was attacked as a

posh boy not knowing the price of milk, that we should not fall into

that trap, we should know the price of everything, and that is

unforgivably unprofessional. Graham Stringer last night on the election

programme, critical of the strategy adopted by his own party and some of

the latest information on the Labour Party, they have made some gains,

but the point of Graham Stringer and other backbenchers is that perhaps,

only one year from the general election, they should have had a

much stronger performance, about 3% up in terms of the figures from the

last general election, and many within the party, four years into

austerity had hoped for much stronger gains and we have seen the

UKIP threat to the Conservatives, but they have also been taking

voting away from Labour in the north. A short time ago, I spoke to

Douglas Alexander and he insisted that despite the headline figures,

Labour had done well in a lot of marginal seats. We are looking at a

four party contest, as has been reflected overnight, but we need to

look at not just the headlines about UKIP, and they will command

headlines, but we need to look at the deeper story. The general

election will be decided by some marginal seats and if we look at the

progress Labour is making in a range of seats... Thurrock is second on

your list and you have not got overall control. If you look at

Carlisle in the north, Cambridge, Hastings, other places like Lincoln,

we have seen significant gains, Labour are making significant

strides in those seats. Rotherham, Swindon, you should be streets

ahead. In Swindon, we are making strides, in that sense, what have we

learned in the course of the last few hours and overnight, of course

the rest are more votes to be counted. But in these key

battlefield, Labour is picking progress. In parts of the country,

we are seeing the Labour the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. We're

joined by the chair of the Local Government Association, we have not

had the results from Kensington and Chelsea, how disappointing that you

have lost Hammersmith and Fulham for the Conservatives. It is very

disappointing. I was part of creating a close working

relationship with Hammersmith and Fulham and Westminster and

Kensington and Chelsea. A lot of this is down to the Charing Cross

Hospital being the major issue. A local issue. Duping people have

voted on local issues or is it punishment for government and the

records of the last couple of years? This is the real difference and in a

few days time, the Euro elections, I know nothing about the people I

voted for in the Euro elections, they have not been on my doorstep,

but these elections across the country are real, visceral, they are

fought on things that matter. In some cases, local issues like

hospital changes that are absolutely live and can change like they did in

Hammersmith and Fulham and in Kingston which has gone to the

Conservatives. That is the difference. That is the strength of

local government. I am one of the few people today on your programme

that is actually standing for election. We hear a lot from

politicians talking about local government further knowledge is

minimal. For the local government, this is live, day`to`day. It seems

to be that so many people are disenchanted with all of the main

parties, has that been one of these themes that you have felt on the

doorstep? What I'd did find, including people

supporting me directly, is that they were supporting me at a local level

but that they were going to support UKIP in the European elections. They

are sending messages. They know it impacts on their daily lives. With

your chair hat on in terms of the Local Government Association am a we

have had four years of extraordinary cuts within local government. The

challenges for all of these new governments is that there are heavy

cuts coming. That is the reality. And those coming into power might be

on a platform of and they will have to join the real world and make

those difficult decisions that being in power actually means. The next

few years are going to be very tough and we will have to think about how

we provide essential services in a very different way. We have been

keeping public confidence. People's confidence in local government has

been rising. Thank you for coming and talking to us. To get back to

one of the headline stories, the success of UKIP, because they have

already exceeded their target. They had a target of 80 new counselors

and they have already exceeded that. No control of any council, but that

was not part of the objective, and you have heard Nigel Farage talking

about spending the summer building on that, and his hope is to get

people in it there, the building behind me,, 2015 and the Westminster

elections. Nigel Farage spoke to my colleague Paul Lambert earlier, and

he of course was pleased with the results so far. So far, so good.

Really solid performance from UKIP right across the country. Big Labour

areas, we are scoring consistently up in the high 20%. There seems to

be a failure to break through in London. London is our weakest part

of England. So much of politics is about voluntary structures, and our

voluntary structure in London is behind where it is in other parts of

the country. Also, don't get too skewed by the London results. Most

of the wards are three member wards. We are a bit behind in London

but perhaps not quite as much as the figures might suggest. Many

forecasters were saying you were going to get 80 seats. How many do

you think you will get? We got that already. It looks to me like we will

get somewhere near double what the experts predicted. Which ever way

you cut it, it is a good night for you kept `` UKIP. There were two

conversations going on last night, one in Westminster, going on about

Tori and peas who still see politics in the old`fashioned divide, and the

other conversation in Swindon, where the Labour leader said, we have been

hurt by UKIP. Another conversation was going on where UKIP 110 seats

and Labour won 11 seats. In the West Midlands, the Tories were splitting

the votes with UKIP. This idea that the UKIP vote hurts the Tories, they

will be blown away by these results. Note tore packed then? UKIP have

been members of the lower orders so I would have thought it was

extremely unlikely. Electorally, I'd bet you that if we pulled UKIP

voters and said, do you want a tax with the Conservative Party, you

would find a small percentage that would say yes. `` a packed. Are you

a force to be reckoned with for the general election? If you look at the

92 election, the Lib Dems were taken from being a tiny party to getting

as high as 62 seats and they did that. You can see from last night,

there are areas across the country where now we have an imprint in

local government and the are under the first past the post system and

are serious players. Over the summer we will choose our target

constituencies and for the kitchen sink at them.

constituencies and for the kitchen sink `` throw the kitchen sink. What

do you think this means for the results for the Euro elections?

There will be quite a lot of people out there who will still vote for

their local counsellor because they will have represented them for 20

years. In the second vote they will vote for UKIP. Looking at the vote

shares across the country, and without wishing to count any

chickens before they have hatched, it looks pretty good. My colleague

Winston McKenzie said that the UKIP Fox was in the Westminster henhouse

and it feels like that. With me now is Matthew Goodwin,

co`author of the book about UKIP, What is your take from what you have

heard so far about the results? It reflects a party strategy of

emulating the Liberal Democrats, but also doing quite well so far in

Labour areas, and we know from the research that UKIP is the most

working`class electorate in British politics, and this is a reflection

of its appeal. It is anything but just a second home for

Conservatives. We know, if you look over the last four or five years,

UKIP has changed the political debate in terms of issues that are

being talked about. Do you think, as a result of these results, they can

actually change policy among the other parties? We have already seen

both the Conservatives and to a lesser extent Labour really move to

try and meet this UKIP threat. From the perspective of UKIP, they want

to put pressure on Labour to get Ed Miliband to commit to a referendum

on Europe and they have arty Gotze David Cameron to do that, and they

want to `` they have already got David Cameron to do that. They

wanted to do something beyond the net migration cap. Douglas Alexander

was quick to slap that down. Do you think that is a sustainable

position? What ever Labour do, they will have to do something with

UKIP. That might mean asking themselves, why are these

working`class voters actually going to a radical right party led by a

former stockbroker and not to Ed Miliband 's? They will have to think

about how to reconnect with those voters, but they will have to think

about Europe and immigration, because those are the issues that

with a galvanized the core base of UKIP. A lot of the main already 's

have talked about a protest vote. Going into the Westminster

elections, a lot of caveats, but do you think they can fundamentally

change the dynamic of what is happening here? The next 12 months

are going to be fascinating. UKIP are going to be coming out of the

gate in 2015 with these first past the post gains in their strategy ``

pocket and their strategy will be very different. This is a party that

knows how to play the game of British politics and knows what it

needs to do at the local level to target seats and really work hard, a

bit like the Liberal Democrats in the 1990s. How long can use keep

saying you're the outsider? They can keep saying it for the next 12

months if not longer. Thank you for your thoughts. We will have plenty

more results from here and more analysis. Now it is back to you in

the studio. Thank you. We will be back with you

at ten o'clock. An update on the search for the missing vessel and

before missing British sailors. Clarity on how long this