The Dirty Dozen

UPDATE: 2.00 pm

Eleven results are now in, with only N. Ireland to come.

UKIP have made it a round dozen MEPs and that is now the final figure. Thus do the "dirty dozen" make their way to Brussels.

Individual regions are as follows:

The North East returned one each, Con, Lab and Lib-Dem, the latter gaining a seat from Labour. Herron got 5.1 percent and retains his deposit. Even with the UKIP and Herron vote combined, the seat would not have been won.

London has returned three Cons, three Labs, two Lib-Dems, one UKIP and one Green. UKIP polled 12 percent.

Yorkshire and Humberside returned two Cons, 2 Lab, 1 Lib-Dem, and one UKIP.

Wales, predictably, is UKIP-free with two Lab, one Con and one PC.

South West had three Cons, two UKIP, one Lib-Dem and one Labour. Knapman is on his way to Brussels,

South-East, the biggest region, returned four Cons, 2 UKIP, 2 Lib-Dems, one Lab and a Green.

Eastern returns three Cons, two UKIP - Jeffrey Titford is back in - one Lib-Dem and one Lab.

West Midlands narrowly failed to return two UKIP candidates with three Cons, two Lab, one UKIP and one Lab.

East Midlands have two Cons, including Roger Helmer, two UKIP, including of course, Kilroy, one Lab and one Lib-Dem.

North West finshed off the night with three Labs, three Cons, two Lib-Dems and on UKIP.

Today, Scotland - which is not a region but a country within the UK, as lead UKIP candidate Peter Troy keeps reminding us - returned two Cons, two Lab, 1 Lib-Dem and two SNPs. That is one Labour loss, owing to the reduced number of seats due to enlargement - otherwise no change.

UKIP came fifith, being pipped to the post by the Greens, votes cast being respectively 79,695 and 78,828. The UKIP vote is just shy of 7 percent, but reached 10 percent in the Orkneys. Troy's message to the nation is "I'll be bakc" - but then he is slightly dislexic.

Pundits earlier were are leaping in saying that the UKIP poll would not be as high as anticipated when, by some strange chance, both UKIP's worst areas had reported first. Clarke thought UKIP will get 15-20 percent as a "protest vote" made up from Telegraph and Sun readers. "Tonight's the night for protest voting".

UKIP is also being attacked for its poor performance in the parliament. Knapman says, "We're not here to make it work".

YouGov earlier predicted that UKIP will get 18 seats on 20 percent of the vote, neck-and-neck with the Tories on 22 percent, but with Labour also on 22 percent. Lib-Dems trail in fourth place, taking 10 seats only. The result turned out to be optimistic for UKIP.

Overall turnout is 40 percent.

From elsewhere, Poland was polling a mere 13 percent by six pm and the authorities have extended the polls by an hour in a desparate attempt to increase the turnout. Spanish turnout is also low, but this is put down to voter fatigue. Throughout Europe, ruling parties are taking a bashing.

A stupid woman said on BBC last night that the reason people don't vote for the Parliament is because they don't know what it does. My experience is that they more they know about this dreadful institution, the more likely they are to vote against it.

Finally, stop press news: David Lott has resigned as chairman of UKIP, for "health reasons". He is replaced by Mike Natrass.

N. Ireland to follow.