What would be a good result for the Conservatives in the council elections?

Holding Trafford would mean a good night – losing Peterborough a bad one.

UKIP Derangement Disorder – time for a second opinion

It’s perfectly OK to be insanely wrong – just as long as you’re insanely wrong in an officially approved manner

Downing Street’s plan for the television debates – the pros and cons

Today’s papers report that Team Cameron has struck on a format for next year’s television debates. Should the UKIP leader really be included?

John Walsh: ToryBoy – the aftermath (or: the Town That Politics Forgot…)

My film revealed a Middlesbrough in which tribal politics and voting patterns had imprisoned its people.

UKIP is not a racist party but it thrives on pessimism

The Euro Elections are a referendum on a referendum

UKIP thrives because the man in the pub feels it will not be cowed into silence

On the eastern fringes of London, drinkers worried by immigration reckon that Farage speaks for them.

Iain Dale: A coming-in party for Nigel Evans

Plus: Lay off Farage. How the Lobby messed up over Newark. Paxman: my sorrow. And: runners and riders for Newsnight.

Brian Monteith: UKIP’s poll performance in Scotland is encouraging for unionists

The numbers suggest a way in which Cameron and Osborne might undo Miliband in 2015.

WATCH: Farage announces he doesn’t want to run in Newark

Having flirted with the idea, the UKIP leader beats a hasty retreat.

Mercer prepares the timer on his Claus Von Stauffenberg memorial briefcase

A post-European elections poll in Newark this spring would give UKIP a second publicity bonanza.

Henry Hill: Lee Rigby appropriated by fascist Euro candidates

Also: DUP veto gay marriage a third time; ex-IRA man accuses Adams of giving him orders; and Scottish teachers sack general secretary after three weeks.

Why the House of Lords is like a leaky gutter

The unreformed House of Lords is an insult to democracy that could get a lot worse

Cameron’s reprieve comes with conditions attached

The plotters may have sheathed their knives, but they’re not exactly happy and that unhappiness could make itself known once again.

Iain Dale: UKIP’s European election posters are disgusting

Plus: Shapps will be Tory Chairman until the election. The Church of England is a left-wing sect. Philomena. Current Affairs. And: Pamela Parker, In Memoriam.

Clegg & Farage, partners

The two are co-operating in trying to boost their votes at Cameron’s expense.