New faces are a mix of colour and controversy

A breakthrough for the UK Independence Party brought triumph for the party's candidates in London.

A surge of support for the anti-EU party means it will have a London MEP for the first time. In a further boost, the party now boasts two seats on the London Assembly - the first time it has had any representatives at City Hall.

UKIP's newly-elected MEP is a BT salesman preparing for his first career change in almost three decades. Gerard Batten, 50, has spent 28 years plying telephone conference systems to corporate clients.

He became a founder member of UKIP in September 1993 following the furore over the Maastricht

Treaty. Unlike some of his party colleagues, he has steered clear of controversy.

He was born in Harold Hill and has lived in London all his life. The father of two sons, Richard, 15, and Paul, 13, he now lives in Forest Gate with his wife Lina.

By contrast, the new London leader of the UK Independence Party is one of the most colourful and controversial figures the party has produced.

Friends joke that Damian Hockney has had more plastic surgery than Joan Collins and been in more furores than Robert Kilroy-Silk.

Expected to be made leader of the two-strong group on the London Assembly, the wealthy magazine publisher is determined to start shaking up the capital's political establishment.

Mr Hockney, 46, has never been afraid to cause offence. Standing in Kensington and Chelsea for the 2001 election, he joked: "I'm worth three votes because the Filipinos that work for me downstairs do what I

say." Two years earlier, contesting the by-election there against Michael Portillo, he outraged some by quipping: "It takes a real man to defeat the EU."

Alan Sked, the UKIP founder, condemned the remark as "blatantly tasteless".

Mr Hockney, a Chelsea resident all his life, bears little resemblance to the stereotype of a UKIP supporter obsessed with European trivia.

A self-confessed addict of plastic surgery, he spent ?1,500 on liposuction at 29 and was given a ?3,000 nose job for Christmas 10 years ago by his long-term partner Sarah. He once considered buttock implants. He is distantly related to artist David Hockney. His father and sister were artists, though he claims to have no talent for the subject. As a teenager he tried to be a pop star and entered a song for the Eurovision Song Contest.

He wants to use his new post to campaign against regional government plans based on European ideas and highlight the costs imposed on businesses by European Commission regulations.

Mr Hockney was jubilant about his new role today, saying: "I intend to approach it with gusto and a vengeance."

UKIP's other representative on the London Assembly is Peter Cross, an IT worker.