Reform UK win symbolic Labour area in bitter blow for Keir Starmer
Reform UK has delivered another bitter blow to Keir Starmer as the party won control of Durham council - a totemic Labour area.
Labour lost control of Durham council back in 2021 for the first time in a century and had been hoping to win back ground at the ballot box this week. But Reform candidates sweeped a majority on the council and took control on Friday.
The area, which elected six Labour MPs at last year's General Election, was at the centre of the Miners' Strike of the 1980s and is home to the annual Miners' Gala.
It will be another difficult result for Mr Starmer after a bruising defeat at the Runcorn and Helsby by-election to Nigel Farage's Reform UK in the early hours of Friday morning. The party fell short by just six votes - one of the closest parliamentary votes ever - to Reform's new MP Sarah Pochin who took the seat.
The Runcorn and Helsby by-election ran alongside local elections and was triggered after former Labour MP Mike Amesbury quit after admitting punching a constituent. Amesbury won 53% of the vote at the general election - and the defeat, along with Reform gains in other Labour heartlands, will cause unease in Downing Street.
Responding to the defeat on Friday, Mr Starmer said the result was "disappointing" - but insisted he is determined to go "further and faster" in delivering change.
The PM told voters: "What I want to say is, my response is we get it. We were elected last year to bring about change." He added Labour have "started that work" with changes such as reductions in NHS waiting lists, and he went on: "I am determined that we will go further and faster on the change that people want to see."
Reform UK took control of Staffordshire County Council after taking eight further seats when counting resumed on Friday to reach 32. It gave Mr Farage's party a majority on the council with Conservatives taking six seats, with a further 24 still to be announced. The Conservatives previously controlled the council with 53 seats, with Labour on five and four independents.
In a bruising set of results, Kemi Badenoch's Tories also lost control of Devon council amid gains by Liberal Democrats and Reform UK. Posting on X, the Conservative leader said: "These were always going to be a very difficult set of elections coming off the high of 2021, and our historic defeat last year - and so it's proving.
"The renewal of our party has only just begun and I'm determined to win back the trust of the public and the seats we've lost, in the years to come."
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The Independent
an hour ago
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BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
What the Spending Review could mean for Yorkshire
As Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to deliver her Spending Review later, BBC Yorkshire's Political Editor James Vincent examines what impact her big decisions could have on our region. Trams, nuclear and medical science. We've had a lot of government visits up here in the last week or so – and a lot of ministers, smiling, telling us they are spending money up here to improve our lives.I think most people would be forgiven for casting a slightly cynical glance their way. We've had ministers and prime ministers before in the same places promising the same insist that this time is need to be right, not just to balance up a North-South divide, but also to convince people here that Labour is still their party. A lot of the promises made and cheques written don't actually relate to this week's Comprehensive Spending Review, but instead the fundamental changes which are going to be made to it – and might make it live up to its adjective-led I first interviewed Sir Keir Starmer at Downing Street he told me that Labour would get rid of the North-South divide – a very bold winter fuel payments was a sign to many that the party was going in the wrong is hoping that this week is a bit of a changed their minds on winter fuel and they are hoping, in turn, that changes some voters' success in Doncaster has given them a lot to think about. You're going to hear a lot about the Green Book later Spending Review is all about the nuts and bolts of what the government wants to spend money on for the next three Green Book is the name for the government's list of assessments on whether a new project is going to be worth building. It basically looks at whether it will be good value by predicting how much money it will bring in versus how much it will problem, for many, with the current version of the book is that it looks more favourably on projects in the south than in the people and more businesses down there means a quicker, bigger return on if you want to balance up the north and south a different sort of return is chancellor is hoping her rewrite of the book means more projects in the north get past the book and get built.
