It’s what everyone has been on the edge of their seats waiting for: Adam Afriyie has had his say on today’s results over at ITV:

“No-one can deny that the Conservative party had a bad night in South Shields and as I write, it looks like we are also going to lose a substantial number of local council seats.

It’s clear that many Conservative voters have stayed at home or, in many cases, voted UKIP.

Either we are not yet effectively communicating our national policies or for whatever reason people are no longer hearing or believing what we have to say.

Sometimes nobody can help that – especially mid-term when we need to cut the deficit and take tough actions.

People are rightly concerned about things like Europe and immigration and that is reflected in the gains made by UKIP.

They are making gains because they only have two issues but they are the issues which chime in rough times – Europe and immigration.

But I am hopeful that we can turn things around and win a majority at the next general election.

But only if we acknowledge how people feel; recognise that they didn’t vote for us because mainstream political parties are failing them.

We need to understand that ignoring UKIP isn’t going to make them go away.

It seems to me that things would be rather different at these elections if people knew that economic growth had restarted, Conservatives had put in place the legislation for an in-out referendum and immigration was already falling further because we had implemented bold but sensible solutions.

I know we can get there and continue to build a bright future for Britain as a world-leading nation once again.”

“His views do not necessarily reflect those of ITV News.” Or the Conservative Party…