UKIP Hoovers Up Protest Vote In Local Elections

By Michael Thrasher, Sky's Election Analyst

Once again Sunderland demonstrated the speed of its vote counting machine by declaring the first ward results. Although Labour's council majority remains formidable the devil lay in the detail.

Close analysis demonstrated UKIP was not only hoovering up the protest vote that once upon a time went to the Liberal Democrats but it was also halting Labour's progress.

Just a few ward results foretold the flavour of the overnight counting in 66 local authorities.

Slowly, UKIP began to translate voter support into seat gains. 

At first these were typically victories from the Conservatives, repeating a pattern at last year's county council elections, particularly in southern and eastern England.

Then, after five recounts in Hartlepool, UKIP finally got the headline it needed - a gain from Labour.

Just two votes separated victor and vanquished, but that did not stop the newly elected UKIP councillor from basking in his triumph.

More spectacular still was the outcome in Rotherham. 

Nigel Farage's party enjoyed a breakthrough night in the polls

At the parliamentary by-election, prompted by the imprisonment of Denis McShane for expenses fraud, UKIP had come a creditable second. 

Now, it had its breakthrough, making ten gains, the majority from Labour.

The balance of gains and losses then took on an unfamiliar theme. 

Instead of showing Conservative/Liberal Democrat losses and Labour gains, at one point it showed all three of the established parties as net losers.

Labour struggled to find the correct line to take. 

It queried predictions that it should be making net gains of about 500 seats, preferring instead its own modest claim that 160 gains would be good news.

That level would certainly not be the launch pad that Ed Miliband needs to take him into Downing Street.

Certainly, Labour's progress was being compromised by UKIP's unexpected bounty of local votes. 

Results from London could provide a better story for Ed Miliband and Labour

Councils such as Tamworth that are critical barometers of the likely outcome of next year's general election provided evidence that Labour's plan A needed revising. 

The Conservatives held on to power there and also in Swindon, the scene of the Labour leader's campaign gaffe.

After 47 of the overnight 66 councils had declared, the table of gains and losses had an unfamiliar look. 

Under normal circumstances the party of opposition would be leading the way in gains but UKIP eclipsed the Labour tally by a sizeable fraction.

The results from London, where a large fraction of the 4,200 seats at stake are located should provide a better story for Labour when they declare their results throughout Friday. 

But even here there could be a surprise or two in store for all of the main parties. 

Most of these wards elect three councillors but UKIP has chosen to field a single candidate in many of them. 

This might have led some voters to remain mostly loyal to their usual party but donate their third local vote to UKIP, thereby boosting an already good night for the party.

For the latest results from around the country as they come in follow Sky's live election blog.

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Local Elections: UKIP Makes Significant Gains

Nigel Farage has claimed his party will win double the number of seats predicted as UKIP makes significant gains across the country.

Early on Friday morning UKIP had already surpassed the 80 seats it had been expected to take, dealing a significant blow to the main parties.

UKIP took seats off both Labour and the Conservatives in their heartlands, which was particularly damaging to Ed Miliband, who has been accused by his own party of running a "unforgiveably unprofessional" campaign.

A ballot box is emptied at Trinity School in Croydon

Labour lost its grip in the north and, in a serious blow, the party lost control of Thurrock, a key marginal for the General Election in 2015, to no overall control, losing two seats to UKIP.

Mr Farage said UKIP would now be "serious players" in the General Election and said the party was expecting to win double the 80 seats that had been predicted.

He said: "The UKIP fox is in the Westminster henhouse" and added: "The idea the UKIP vote just hurts the Tories is going to be blown away by this election." 

However, Mr Farage, who has consistently warned the local and European elections would deliver a UKIP "earthquake", admitted that the party was unlikely to be successful in London.

Douglas Alexander, Labour's election co-ordinator, was forced to deny fighting a "lacklustre" campaign.

He told Sky News the only way to tackle the march of UKIP was by deploying an "army of activists" on the doorsteps and said that Labour had knocked on seven million doors.

Joey Essex may have supported Ed Miliband but Essex man voted UKIP

Mr Alexander said there was a "deep antipathy to how politics has been done" and UKIP had scooped up that vote but that "strengthening and growing the ground operation" was the only strategy for 2015.

UKIP made its greatest gains in Essex, where Margaret Thatcher once identified the "Essex Man", a man who moved out of London, once voted Labour but switched to the Tories.

UKIP took seats from Labour in Hartlepool, won 10 seats in Rotherham and polled more than a third of the vote in wards in big cities, such as Sunderland, Birmingham and Hull, where it previously had little or no presence.

According to the latest Sky News projection, the results so far would give a hung parliament at the 2015 General Election.

Mr Farage casts his vote in Cudham, Kent

Sky's election analyst Professor Michael Thrasher said UKIP's success suggested the party would claim at least one seat in the House of Commons next year

Conservative Education Secretary Michael Gove said the results had not been as bad as expected. He categorically ruled out any chance of a pact with UKIP.

Most councils will not declare their results until later on Friday.

The Camerons and the Milibands cast their votes

As predicted, the Liberal Democrats suffered significant losses, particularly in Portsmouth where it lost control with UKIP gaining six seats.

However, it managed to hold on in Eastleigh, where UKIP had been expected to make gains, which was a significant victory for the party.

Business Secretary Vince Cable admitted it would be a bad night, adding: "We take a kicking for the things that government does that are unpopular."

:: Follow all the results as they come in on Twitter with @skyelections.

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Hundreds Discharged From Hospitals Every Night

By Thomas Moore, Health Correspondent

Thousands of NHS patients are being discharged from hospitals every year in the middle of the night despite bosses ordering a crackdown on the practice, a Sky News investigation has found.

The number of patients leaving hospital in England between 11pm and 6am has actually risen in the last two years, new figures show.

In almost half of cases, the proportion of patients discharged overnight has increased.

In April 2012 NHS England medical director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh called on hospitals to cut down on overnight discharges following a series of cases where vulnerable patients had been left to make their own way home.

Dr Mike Smith has said the practice is driven by the need for beds

The NHS was accused of discharging patients overnight to try to free up beds.

However, figures obtained by Sky News following Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that since Sir Bruce's intervention the practice is still widespread and in many cases rising.

According to the figures more than 300,000 patients have been discharged late at night since 2012 - an average of around 400 a night. Tens of thousands of those patients were over 75.

As only 72 of England's 160 NHS trusts were able to provide full figures for the last three years, the true number is certain to be far higher.

Dr Mike Smith, chair of the Patients Association, said: "They have got people in A&E chomping at the bit, lying in corridors, they have got to be admitted and they have no beds.

The number of patients discharged overnight increased at 41 hospital trusts

"It's for the convenience of staff and the person they are admitting but at the gross detriment to the person they are chucking out."

Experts say that patients often end up in care homes in the middle of the night.

Nadra Ahmed, chair of the National Care Association, said: "They are going back without any relevant information about how their care might have changed, what the diagnosis might have been, their paperwork is not following because people are off duty and often without the relevant medication they need for the following day or even through the night."

Patient Michael Atkinson told Sky News that in March 2013 he was discharged from the Royal Bolton Hospital A&E at 3am, despite being in a confused state.

He was found by police an hour later wandering on a cricket pitch almost a mile away.

He said: "I did not know who I was, where I was. I did not know where I was going. I was just wandering basically. I was in pain."

Michael Atkinson was found wandering after he was discharged overnight

His wife Helen said: "He could have died. He was blue with cold. Something must be done to stop this happening. You are in hospital for a reason - to be looked after."

The hospital said that Mr Atkinson had left before transport could be arranged for him but said that staff had tried to learn lessons from the incident.

Sky News asked 160 NHS trusts in England how many patients had been discharged between 11pm and 6am in the past three years.

Of those, 72 trusts provided figures for all three years. In 41 cases, the number of patients discharged overnight increased.

In 31 cases the proportion of patients discharged between 11pm and 6am increased. In three trusts it remained the same.

Of the 72 trusts that replied, 152,472 patients were discharged between 11pm and 6am in 2011/12, rising to 152,479 in 2013/14.

The figures also reveal that 20,152 were aged over 75 in 2011/12; 19,728 in 2012/13 and 18,548 in 2013/14.

The proportion of patients discharged overnight remained the same at 2.41%.

Some 25 trusts said they did not collect the data or that it would take too much time to find it and the remaining hospitals did not reply to the FOI request.

A spokesperson for NHS England said: "Discharging patients at night without appropriate support is unacceptable, particularly if a patient is vulnerable.

"Where a patient wishes to leave late at night or early in the morning, it should be accommodated only where it is safe and clinically appropriate and with the support of family, friends or carers.

"The decision to do this should always be based on what is best for the patient."

:: Have your say on Facebook or share your experiences on Twitter using the hashtag #nhsovernight

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Missing Yachtsmen Search: Floating Debris Found

Debris has been found by a vessel searching for the missing yacht that is thought to have capsized with four Britons on board.

The US Coast Guard told Sky News a catamaran, Malisi, had discovered random floating objects within the search area - but could not confirm it was from the missing Cheeki Rafiki.

Steve Warren, 52, Andrew Bridge, 22, James Male, 23, and Paul Goslin, 56, were on board the 40ft yacht when it ran into difficulties while returning to the UK from a regatta in Antigua.

A spokeswoman for the US Coast Guard said: "I can confirm that we have received reports (of debris) from the sailing vessel Malisi. They have found some debris in the search area. We can't tell at this time if they are from the Cheeki Rafiki as there were no identifying marks on them.

"The debris was a plank of wood and a small piece of floating foam, but there was nothing identifying the Cheeki Rafiki.

"Obviously it is a possibility, and we are definitely treating it very seriously and incorporating that into our search, but I can't say for certain that it was from the Cheeki Rafiki."

She said the report would be used in planning the search effort, but could not say whether vessels or aircraft would be diverted to the area.

The spokeswoman could not say if the debris was in an area already searched.

"A lot of these areas overlap and are searched several times, and it is possible that other vessels had been in the area," she said.

An initial search for the stricken vessel was called off on Sunday amid bad weather in the Atlantic Ocean, but began again on Tuesday after pressure from the men's families.

More than 200,000 people also signed a petition demanding the operation be resumed.

The search, around 1,000 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. now involves six ships and four planes - including an RAF Hercules.

Relatives of the sailors are due to meet Foreign Office officials in London.

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Abu Hamza Faces Life In Jail After NYC Verdict

A Terror Camp Inspired By Hamza

Updated: 9:38pm UK, Monday 19 May 2014

By Hannah Thomas-Peter, New York Correspondent

The hamlet of Bly, Oregon, is remote, arid and sparsely populated.

Only a few hundred people live there, many of whom enjoy the solitude, lack of law enforcement, and permissive gun laws.

On the face of it then, Bly did not seem a bad place to try to set up a terrorist training camp on US soil.

From his base at London's Finsbury Park mosque, Abu Hamza conspired to do just that; inspiring followers to find a location, and dispatching associates to train recruits.

The men intent on preparing for holy war might have gone unnoticed were it not for Sergeant Maurie Smith, at the end of his night shift in nearby Klamath Falls, spotting a white compact car with a lighting violation.

He said: "I noticed that they were wearing army fatigues, long trench coat jackets, they had head gear on, long beards, and (were) of Arabic descent."

The driver was "overly polite" and the three adult male passengers behaved oddly, said Sgt Smith, with one of them clutching a briefcase to his chest, the other trying to shelter a young child with his body.

They said some of them were going to San Francisco to sight-see.

With little back up and restrictive search and seizure laws in the state, the officer issued a citation and let them go, but he ran a check on the driver and entered a full report into the system.

The search alerted the FBI, who arrived in Klamath Falls just three hours later.

Sgt Smith said the FBI agents had lost track of the men until he contacted them and said he felt like he had "cheated death that day".

He said: "I was upset about not searching the vehicle, and they said 'well, they're highly trained individuals, we've been tracking them for a while, they are linked to some terrorist organisations', and that basically if you'd hit the right button at that very moment they would have shot you dead on the spot, without feeling any remorse about it."

But not everyone in Bly believes the camp was a hub for violent extremists intent on taking their new jihad skills to Afghanistan.

Many locals, as well as Abu Hamza's own lawyers, contend that little was achieved there other than some perfectly legal horse riding, fitness drills and target practice.

Tow company owner Dean Lawrence said he knew one of the men.

"He used to come by the store and buy gas, ask me for work a few times, seemed a nice guy," he said.

"I think it's been made out to be worse than what it was."

Former county sheriff Tim Evinger said his community was in shock after the discovery.

He said: "You know the biggest lessons were that this can happen anywhere, it can happen in our back yard here in remote Oregon, it can happen in the cities."

This conviction is the latest in a string of high-profile terror cases being tried in New York.

In March a jury found Osama bin Laden's son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith guilty of terrorism offences.

Richard Barrett, former head of counter-terrorism at MI6, said: "Abu Hamza was very typical of many people at that time in the late 90s and early 2000s, of skating along that line between being a complete rabble rouser and being a bit of a threat, a real threat.

"He probably wouldn't be able to do anything particularly operationally sophisticated because he's not that sort of guy, but there's no doubt that through his radical preaching and so on, he could persuade others that was the right thing to do."

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Pistorius Ordered To Go To Psychiatric Hospital

Oscar Pistorius has been ordered to attend a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled last week that Pistorius' state of mind when he shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp should be assessed, possibly delaying court proceedings for up to two months.

A psychiatrist giving evidence in the athlete's defence had earlier told the court he generalised anxiety disorder and that this may have influenced his judgement when he shot Ms Steenkamp through a toilet door at his home on February 14 last year.

The tests were requested by the chief prosecutor and opposed by Pistorius' lawyer.

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Missing Yachtsmen: Pleas For Search To Resume

Relatives of four British sailors missing at sea have made a heartfelt plea for rescuers to resume their search in the Atlantic Ocean.

Speaking to Sky News, family members of the sailors said they believe their loved ones are still alive and that the US Coastguard should not have abandoned its rescue mission.

The overturned hull of a yacht matching the description of the Cheeki Rafiki was spotted and photographed by a cargo veseel assisting the search before it was called off on Sunday due to treacherous weather conditions. 

It reported no there were no signs of life on board and no life raft, however no one from the Greek-registered 1,000ft container ship Maersk Kure tried to climb down to the yacht top check if anyone was trapped alive inside.

The crew was returning from Antigua Sailing Week in the 40ft yacht when it ran into difficulties 620 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Thursday.

Contact with Andrew Bridge, 21, James Male, 23, Steve Warren, 52, and Paul Goslin, 56, was lost in the early hours of Friday while they were diverting to the Azores.

The yacht reportedly capsized on the way back from the Caribbean

Mr Bridge's aunt, Georgie Bridge, said her nephew was the captain of the yacht, named the Cheeki Rafiki.

She told Sky News the sailor's family remains hopeful that the crew will be found alive.

"Obviously the family are really concerned that the search has been suspended and we are really hoping that it will be resumed," she said.

"We are holding out great hope that Andrew and the guys on board Cheeki Rafiki will be found.

"We are hopeful that they were able to launch a life raft and that they are still on board that, so we would just really like the search to be resumed."

US and Canadian aircraft searched for the missing crew on Friday and Saturday, with help from three merchant vessels.

L-R: Andrew Bridge, Steve Warren, James Male, Paul Goslin

A US Coastguard spokesman said the crews searched more than 4,000 square miles of the ocean for pings from the vessel's personal locator beacons.

"After receiving no more transmissions we believe that we would have found them by now if we were going to find them.

"These beacons are small devices and the ones being used have a very short battery life."

The Coastguard defended the actions of the crew of the cargo vessel which spotted what was thought to be the yacht, saying it did not the capabilities to search or pick up the Cheeki Rafiki.

"Aircraft take four or five hours to get there and vessels can take over a week. This particular ship just happened to be in the area, they were not tasked specifically for this," he said.

Mr Bridge, from Farnham in Surrey, was being paid by the Southampton-based yacht training and charter company Stormforce Coaching for his role as captain, a spokeswoman for the firm said.

Stormforce director Doug Innes said that the yacht had first started taking on water on Thursday, but the skipper was in contact and the crew were keeping the situation stable.

"Although the search efforts co-ordinated by Boston were exceptional we are devastated that the search has now been called off so soon," Mr Innes said.

"Our thoughts are with the four yachtsmen and their families and we hope and pray for them all."

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