A quick and dirty analysis of results in Mid Suffolk...

Well, that wasn't anywhere near as painful as I feared it would be. So, without further ado, here are the results;

• Conservatives - 35% (5 seats, down 1 - Stowmarket South)

• UKIP - 23.6% (1 seat, up 1 - Stowmarket South)

• Greens - 15.6% (1 seat, no change)

• Liberal Democrats - 13.8% (3 seats, no change)

• Labour - 11.9% (no seats, no change)

Where we worked - held seats and Stowmarket South - we did well. Forty more votes and we'd have won 4 out of 10 divisions with just 14% of the vote (commiserations to Keith Scarff on coming so close again). Otherwise, we were massacred. So, where we work, we win.

The Greens made no real impression outside their Upper Gipping bastion, poor thirds in Hartismere, Thedwastre North and Thredling being the best of their rest. In Stowupland North and Stowupland, where they were pretty visible, they came fourth.

Labour are still pretty irrelevant - their best result was Stowmarket North and Stowupland, but they still came third behind UKIP there. Otherwise, they were fourth in most divisions and fifth overall.

What can you say about the Conservatives? The only seat that was genuinely at risk was Stowmarket South, and they lost it by just one vote. Their share of the vote fell dramatically, nonetheless. They'll lick their wounds, mourn the fallen in Ipswich, Lowestoft, Haverhill and West Suffolk, and blunder on. A majority of three, however, makes their ambition to contract out everything that isn't nailed down rather more difficult.

UKIP will be delighted with their share of the vote but, like the SDP/Liberal Alliance in 1983, will find that getting votes across the piece is one thing - getting them where they matter is another. Only time will tell whether or not their new councillors are actually capable of representing their newly won electorates.

Turnout was poor, which favoured a party whose message was, simply put, to give the rest of us a good kicking. Given the absence of a meaningful campaign, it is hard to say what else those voting UKIP wanted.

So, on reflection, we'll have to hit the ground running for 2015, but at least there are grounds for some limited optimism...