Local election 2013: results live 0958 Shocking. Obliterated. That is the verdict of Lib Dem president Tim Farron on the party's perfomance in David Miliband's old seat last night. In South Shields, the Lib Dem candidate, Hugh Annand, achieved just 1.4 per cent of the vote, convincing just 352 individuals to back him, and the party lost its deposit. 0952 On the BBC, Hugh Edwards reads a Tweet from Tory Vice Chairman Michael Fabricant, which says: "Let us now be polite to UKIP and their supporters." Oh we don't want that, oh no. Ken Clarke, who branded the party as clowns, gave Ukip three per cent alone, he adds. Fabricant adds: "Life cannot go on as normal for all 3 main parties unless they have no ambition for 2015. I hope there will be some serious research about exactly WHAT message UKIP voters are giving: none-of-the-above or specific issues. 09.47 Benedict Brogan, the Deputy Editor, says Ukip is ripping huge chunks out of Tory heartlands. It will increase the unrest in Tory ranks. And Mary Riddell writes: Farage's vision of Britain as a fortified Olde Englande theme park is frightening. 0930 Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, is pleading Nigel Farage to stop claiming 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians will arrive in Britain when travel restrictions are lifted. Farage says his forecast, based on previous trends in Eastern Europe, is a further 400,000 people. Hughes asks him to only use that figure. Farage replies: "It's an open door to 29 million." Mr Farage was cheered by a cab driver on arriving at television studios in Westminster, who shouted: "Go Nigel, go!." 0906 Last week Ken Clarke described Ukip as 'clowns'. Today, Nigel Farage said: "Send in the clowns." He added: "We've been abused by everybody, attacked by the entire establishment, who did their best to stop ordinary decent people from going out and voting Ukip and they have done in big, big numbers. At the end of today we are going to have a fair tally and it sends a shockwave, I think, through the establishment. Farage's deputy, Paul Nuttall, has accuse the Tory Party of a "smear campaign" which could discourage people from standing for public office. A number of Ukip candidates have been embarrassed by the contents of their Facebook and Twitter pages. Mr Nuttall told BBC Breakfast: "You might say that's scrutiny, I think it is a smear campaign. They are playing the man and not the ball and that's never been done in local elections before. If we return that favour and did exactly the same to the other parties I'm sure we'll find more skeletons and more scandal but we wouldn't do that because we are better than that. We are grown up and we want to fight this on principle and policy. 0855 James Kirkup notes the sudden change in tone from the Tories. He blogs: From the Conservative Party to Ukip, an apology. The following statement has recently been issued by the Conservative Party: "In recent months and weeks, this party has made a number of statements and allegations about the United Kingdom Independent Party. We have suggested that Ukip was a collection of clowns, a party largely made up of fruitcakes, racists and other undesireables. We have suggested that a vote for Ukip denoted either a defective mind or an incoherent and childish anger at the world. In the light of new information recently received, we now realise that those statements were wholly without merit or foundation and we withdraw them with immediate effect and undertake never to repeat them. Far from being a bunch of swivel-eyed nut-jobs, we now acknowledge that Ukip and its adherents are expressing legitimate concerns about various important aspects of public policy. 0852 Tim Ross, political correspondent, was listening to Grant Shapps' response to Ukip. Three quick points to note from the Conservative response to Ukip's flying start to the local election results. First, Grant Shapps, the Tory Chairman, has begun the post-mortem, warning that his party has been "failing to get our own message across" to voters. Specifically, he says, too few people actually understand that the government is fixing the economy and has cut the deficit by a third. This is a pretty direct challenge to George Osborne and may well be seen as a comment on Lynton Crosby's first few months working with the Conservatives. Mr Crosby, the Australian political strategist who masterminded Boris Johnson's success, is known to believe that "message" is the most important thing in politics. Secondly, as if to demonstrate the confused messaging, Mr Shapps seemed to veer this morning from being willing to name Ukip and heap praise on their performance, and refusing to let the name of the party cross his lips. The political theory, memorably rehearsed in a famous episode of the West Wing, is that you don't give your opponent a free advert by naming him. David Cameron took the silent approach of refusing to name Ukip on Radio 4 earlier this week. Mr Shapps in an early interview this morning said "Ukip have done well." In later interviews - notably on Today shortly after 8am - he said voters had chosen none of the three main parties, without naming his tormentors. The final point is that Mr Shapps revealed what he wants the next election to be about: who voters want to be Prime Minister, David Cameron or Ed Miliband. If the Conservatives have their way, the run-up to 2015 will be about Ed and Dave and it could get pretty personal. The danger for the Tories, though, is that everyone else will want to talk about Nigel. 0830 Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has indicated Ukip are not looking for power - but influence. He compared the role of UKip to that of the SDP in the 1980s which, he argued, pushed Labour into a rightwards turn. Tony Blair, he said, was an "SDP Prime Minister." He said: "I accept when it comes to a General Election we have a problem, that is the first-past-the-post system. He said of the SDP: "They fundamentally changed the entire Labour Party - Foot and Benn and the hard left were all gone and the new modernising Labour Party ... with people like Peter Mandelson in strong positions. If ever there was a pressure group in British politics it was the SDP. The Ukip leader said his goal was to "fundamentally change" British politics, insisting it "can happen." Mr Farage told the programme he did not feel he was a Tory but supported the reforms made in the 1980s. "We need radical reform and I am absolutely certain the getting back control of our country ... there is now a settled majority out there that wants us to get our country back," he said. 0810 A change of tack from the Tories. Earlier in the week, senior figures were dismissing the party as "clowns." But this morning, Grant Shapps, the Tory party chairman, is hugging the party once described by the PM as "fruitcakes" tight. Ukip voters, he says, are simply "impatient for change" and their demands - curbing immigration and welfare spending, restoring the economy and repatriating powers from Europe - are the same as the Tories. That is a loud and clear message. We get it. We heard you," Mr Shapps said. It is a similar line to Boris Johnson, who wrote in the Telegraph this week that Ukip's success shows the public are conservative leaning. 0809 The father of Tory MP Priti Patel took second place standing under the Ukip banner in a Hertfordshire County poll. Sushil Kantibhai Patel was running under that party's description on the ballot paper at Bushey South. He came more than 1,200 votes behind Conservatives but ahead of Labour and Liberal Democrats. He told the Telegraph on standing that Ukip is not a racist party. "It is daylight coming through the darkness hours of this country," he said. 0750 A distant relative of Guy Fawkes, the seventeenth century terrorist, has been elected as a Ukip councillor. Philip Fawkes, a retired headteacher, is a descendant of Fawke's great-great-grandfather. He won the South Waterside ward in Hampshire County Council. When Mr Fawkes's candidacy was announced, party leader Nigel Farage said it showed "the blood of rebellion still runs in his veins." 0725 Nigel Farage has declared Ukip is the third party "numerically." He said: "People haven't seen us as being relevant for local elections, or in some ways general elections, so for us to be scoring at least 26% of the vote where we stand is, I think, very significant indeed." When asked about whether the party had now entered a four-party race, Mr Farage replied: "Numerically we're the third [party] because the Lib Dems are trailing behind." He added: "This wave of protests certainly isn't short term, it's lasting." A Ukip spokesman predicted the party would receive more than one million votes, a higher level of support than at the last general election. The spokesman said: "Where we are standing, we are taking an average of 26.2% of the vote. I can now predict with confidence that we will take more than 1 million votes - more than we took at the entire general election in 2010. It's likely that we might even reach 1.5 million. Last night Stuart Wheeler, a major Ukip donor, last night told the Telegraph the party could have 10 MPs and even a role in Government in the next election. Mr Wheeler compared the rise of Ukip - it is backed by around 14 per cent of voters and has seen membership soar - to the success of Alex Salmond's Scottish National Party north of the Border. I am not forecasting that I am just saying it is a possibility. Stuart Wheeler talks to the Telegraph 0720 Grant Shapps, the Conservative Party chairman, has said the Tories were hit by the rise of Ukip. He said: "We have lost a lot of good councillors in the counts overnight. People have sent a message, we get it, we hear what people are saying, people are concerned that we get on with the big issues facing hard-working people in this country, like fixing the economy, sorting out the welfare system, helping hard-working people to get on. Ukip have done well, I don't make any secret about that at all. We need to make sure that we are addressing the concerns of the public. We have seen that we have managed to get the deficit down by a third, immigration down by a third and we are working to make sure that in this country work always pays. He indicated the 2015 General Election would be a two-horse race. There is a lot more to do, there's two years to go until the next election and in the end it will be a choice between whether you want Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, for Labour, in Downing Street or David Cameron trying to make sure that this country is always a place where hard-working people can get on. 0705 The main developments overnight: By-election Labour have held South Shields in a by-election, with 50.51 per cent of the vote. Ukip came second on 24 per cent of the vote. The Tories came third (11.55pc). The Lib Dems came seventh, behind an independent, a socialist and the BNP, with 352 votes, and lost their deposit. Richard Elvin, the Ukip candidate, said: "To come from nowhere to take 25% at its first attempt is absolutely stunning. It's a message to all three mainstream parties that Ukip is the official opposition. Emma Lewell-Buck of the Labour Party celebrates after winning the South Shields byelection, retaining Labour's seat Mayoral election Labour have won the North Tyneside mayoral election after defeating the incumbent Conservative candidate. Local elections The Conservatives have lost control of Gloucestershire County Council as Labour and the UK Independence Party ate into their majority. The Tories remain the largest party overall with 23 councillors, down 17 in a county where there have been boundary changes since the seats were last fought in 2009. Labour gained four seats and Ukip three, with the Liberal Democrats unchanged on 14. Independents and others had four seats. The Tories lost control of Lincolnshire for the first time in 20 years. Ukip gained 16 seats, Labour gained 7 and the Conservatives lost 26 seats. The Tories have held Dorset, Essex, Hampshire, Somerset and Hertfordshire. Initial results in Staffordshire saw some Labour gains - with the Tories losing their stranglehold on Tamworth. Of the six Tory-held county council seats up for grabs in the borough, three fell to Labour and a fourth to an independent candidate. Ukip attracted a high of 28% of the vote in Tamworth's Amington division, while former Labour MP Brian Jenkins secured victory in Watling North by a margin of only 20 votes. Ukip made gains in the Tory heartland of Essex, winning nine county council seats. The Tories lost 19 seats, previously holding 59 out of 75. Labour also made gains. 0700 Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the results of yesterday's local elections. Send your thoughts and pictures: matthew.holehouse@Telegraph.co.uk.