UKIP-supporting ex-councillor Jeremy Zeid is not a man to mince his words - or actions. He recently recalled on a radio phone-in how he had dealt with a seagull menace some years ago.

Some birds had been terrorising local cats, until he took a potshot with his airgun. "I didn't kill anything," he told me, "I couldn't hit a barn door." But they got the message.

However, his admission resulted in a visit from the local constabulary for shooting gulls is against the law. Or what he thought was the local constabulary. Further enquiries, he said, revealed that police had no record of sending anyone to him and now the search is on for a fake PC.