Good morning. Who knows if they were awake for it, but if so, Kemi Badenoch and Keir Starmer may wish they could go back to bed. In the byelection in Runcorn and Helsby, Labour’s 49th safest seat, the party lost a majority of almost 15,000 to the Reform candidate Sarah Pochin after a recount – agonisingly being defeated by the margin of just six votes, the narrowest byelection victory in more than 100 years. In Lincolnshire, the former Conservative minister Andrea Jenkyns was announced as the new Reform mayor a few minutes ago.
A caveat worth repeating: there is an awful lot of this story still to be told, because the results in councils are yet to be announced. We can say this, though: the results so far will have left Nigel Farage in a very good mood indeed.
