Sunday, 2 October, 2004, 18:04 BST

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By the By-Election

UKIP Trounces Tories in Hartlepool

Kilroy might hate the French, Germans and Arabs, but he loves being photographed

After narrowly scraping third place in the Hartlepool by-election, the United Kingdom Independence Party are in a position of power to wipe the floor with the other parties in the forthcoming General Election.

UKIP MP Stephen Allison thrashed the Tories 3,193 to 3,044, and was hot on the heels of both Labour and the Lib Dems, who got 12,752 and 10,719, respectively.

"The Conservative Party is dying; why would you want to give it the kiss of life? What we have to do is to kill it." explained Robert Kilroy-Silk, UKIP's Chief Orator, "Which, incidentally, is very similar to our policy on Europe and immigrants, which should help save paper on the manifesto."

UKIP used its party conference to reverse its proposed stance of "not running against eurosceptic Tory candiates" in elections, because this would prevent them running in the majority of constituencies. Jeffrey Titford, a UKIP MEP, told the press that "About 70% of the people in this country don't want the European Union so, if you've got to choose a single policy on which to base your entire political ideology, it's one of the best vote-spinners there is!"

I'm sick of all these Europeans! They all get fat subsidies, even the Spanish, and no-one's giving EU funding to my new bid to take over EuroStar and replace it with a means of sneaking the army into France. Stuff the EU, that's what I say! Roger Bighouse, typical voter

Meanwhile, Michael Howard, whose party has been left on the ropes by this humiliating defeat, is vying desperately to recoup those three-thousand-odd turncoat voters who so screwed him over in Hartlepool. He has promised tougher immigration laws and a referendum on the EU very soon after the General Election, if the Conservatives get into office.

Chief Orator Kilroy has ridiculed Howard for his rip-off re-branded UKIP policies; "That big Tory is stealing all of UKIP's policies," he explained, reasonably, "Next he'll be ripping off my 'accuse other parties of ripping off your policies' policy, and be accusing me of copying him! Why would we steal anything from him? What do we need policies on the Health Service for, anyway?"

"What we have to do is to kill them, and replace them. It is our destiny. I have foreseen it."

Kilroy is expected to announce next week that he is Michael Howard's father.