Conservative rebel, Mark Reckless, has been chosen for the third time as his party's general election candidate for the Rochester and Strood constituency.

He won selection outright with more than 50 per cent of the votes in the final runoff on Sunday night.

The South East Tory MEP, Daniel Hannan, immediately hailed him as the right kind of MP for parliament.

Writing on his blog, Mr Hannan said not everyone in the party hierarchy was keen on his candidature. He had faced considerable opposition.

~ Read Mr Hannan's blog entry >>>

One defeated finalist said they were pleased for Mr Reckless. The local party had stuck by him despite two defeats.

At the last election, Mr Reckless polled 17,120 votes. The winner, Bob Marshall-Andrews, himself a Labour rebel, collected 17,333 votes, but at one point during the evening told the BBC he thought he had lost.

Among those discarded during the day was Cllr Craig Mackinlay, who had fought every election since 1997 for UKIP.

Mr Reckless was due to address a constituency meeting in Wainscott on Monday night.

The three defeated finalists were: