Another second place for UKIP

UKIP had an excellent result in the election to fill expenses thief, Lord Hanningfield's vacant seat on Essex County Council.

The seat was, unsurprisingly, retained by the Tories as you would expect from a "true blue" seat with 1,820 votes but the UKIP candidate, Jesse Pryke, came second with 736.

Third place went to Labour with just 273 votes, fourth to the Lib Dems with 160 and the communist Green Party candidate received just 80 votes.

Obviously a win would have been a better result but second place in an election contested by all three of the LibLabCon is still an excellent result.