Times today on election

“Nigel Farage declared today that Ukip would be “serious players” in the general election next year as swathes of voters rejected the three mainstream political parties to back him in local elections. The Ukip leader said that his party could win 200 council seats, almost double the number it had hoped to gain. “The Ukip fox is in the Westminster henhouse,” he said.

“There are areas of the country where now we have got an imprint in local government. Under the first-past-the-post system we are serious players.”
The party’s gains were already reaching 100 seats with about a third of the results announced, and there were signs that it was posing big problems for Labour by pegging back Ed Miliband’s party in key southern areas and in its northern heartlands.

With results from 65 out of 161 councils declared, Labour gained 112 seats, with Ukip adding another 89. The Liberal Democrats are down about 103 seats, as are the Conservatives. Labour has gained control of four councils, the Tories have lost eight and the Lib Dems have lost two.
One prominent local Labour councillor warned that Ukip was “causing mayhem” as it performed strongly in areas including Rotherham, Sunderland, Birmingham, Hull and Essex. It led to immediate criticism of Mr Miliband and his “unforgivably unprofessional” campaign from within the party.

Ukip won ten council seats in Rotherham, underlining a warning from the Labour peer Lord Glasman that his party was becoming too middle class in its outlook for many working class areas.

However, later results showed that Labour had gained control of the flagship Tory council of Hammersmith and Fulham in London. It also gained control in Croydon, Merton, Redbridge and Cambridge.
The Tories were also losing dozens of seats to Ukip, unleashing fresh demands from some Tory MPs for local pacts between the two parties at the next general election. In Essex, the Conservatives lost control in Southend-on-Sea after a Ukip surge enabled the party to gain five seats.
David Cameron’s party lost control of other Essex councils in Basildon and Castle Point as Ukip made significant gains across the county. There was also grim news for the prime minister in Kent, where the Tories lost control of Maidstone after Ukip won four seats.

The Tory MPs Douglas Carswell, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Peter Bone broke cover to call for a pact with Ukip in 2015. It risked shattering Mr Cameron’s hopes of unity until the crucial Newark by-election in two weeks’ time.
Mr Farage will have to wait until Sunday night to learn whether he has achieved his main goal of topping the poll in European parliament elections, also held yesterday across Britain.

It also appeared to have been another torrid set of election results for the Lib Dems, who continued to haemorrhage support. The party lost control of Kingston council, the backyard of the cabinet minister Ed Davey.
Lynne Featherstone, the Lib Dem international development minister, said that Ukip had scored a “stunning success” and issued a warning to her colleagues.

“We are so guarded and so on message that we have lost our humanity,” she said. “We are the whipping boy of the coalition.”
The early results flagged up big concerns for Labour and Mr Miliband, with the party failing to win the key council of Swindon. The party had hoped that victory in the town would show it was making progress in the south, where Mr Miliband has struggled for support.
The Tories actually increased their majority on the town’s council. It will embarrass the Labour leader, who conceded in a radio interview this week that he did not know the name of the Swindon Labour leader, Jim Grant.
Mr Grant admitted that the result had posed serious questions for his party, but did not blame Mr Miliband’s gaffe for the failure. “That’s a big media event, I don’t think it has affected what has happened here,” he said. “I’m a big fan of Ed, but we’ve all got to work harder to get our message across.”
John Ferrett, the Labour leader in Portsmouth and a general election candidate in the city, said that Ukip was “causing mayhem”. MPs broke cover to criticise the campaign and Mr Miliband’s performance.
Graham Stringer, the Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, issued a scathing assessment of the leadership.
“We’ve not done as well as we should have done, both in presentation of our policies and organisation,” he told the BBC. “The campaign itself has not been professional. The centrepiece has been the cost of living but Ed didn’t know his own cost of living.
“There wasn’t the kind of enthusiasm on the doorstep [among Labour voters] that I have felt when we have been going to win elections. And when you talk more deeply to people, they don’t really find any empathy or sympathy with Ed. He’s not getting over his own personality over to them in a way they feel warm towards.”
David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, told Sky News: “There’s no doubt about it, Ukip are biting into parts of Labour’s working class vote.”
Early results showed the party was struggling to gain the 300 to 400 seats it would need to claim that it had enjoyed a good night of results.
There was better news for Labour in Cambridge and in London, where it won control of Hammersmith and Fulham, a flagship Tory council. Mr Cameron will also be left with concerns about the rise of Ukip and the apparent failure of the economic recovery to damage its performance.
John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said the recovery had “not significantly touched Ukip’s support”.
Meanwhile, Vince Cable, the business secretary, appeared to distance himself from Nick Clegg’s decision to fight the European election with a campaign celebrating Britain’s place in the EU. He said the party would receive a “kicking” from voters.
“The party leader took the gamble of fighting a European election on the issue of Europe which is a very unusual thing to do in the UK,” he told Sky News. “We’ll see.
“There isn’t a leadership issue and I think he has enhanced respect as a result of being willing to engage with these very difficult issues.”