Local elections: Reform seizes Runcorn in teal tsunami

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Votes are being counted across England, but there is a clear early winner from these local elections: Nigel Farage. His party triumphed in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election this morning, overturning a 14,000-odd majority and winning by just six votes!

Elsewhere, Andrea Jenkyns triumphed in Lincolnshire; Reform came second in a number of mayoral races; and their 38 per cent vote share in Runcorn matches the best-ever performance that Ukip achieved in a by-election.

So far, the story is one of teal triumph – at the expense of the two main parties. Labour are already pointing to the difficulty incumbents often face at local elections, and will claim victory after narrowly holding out in three mayoral races: North Tyneside, the West of England and Doncaster. The Tories, however, appear to have totally capitulated – but with widespread results for councils across England expected later, that could all change.

Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Lucy Dunn.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and arts reviews.
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0:24.5	Hello. Go to spectator.co.uk forward slash voucher. Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.
0:29.4	I'm Oskredminton and I'm joined this morning by James Heel and Lucy Dunn after a dramatic local elections night.
0:36.7	The headlines are that reform have won in Runcorn and Helsby by just six votes,
0:41.7	as well as getting their first mayoralty.
0:44.1	Their successes are at the expense of the big parties who have suffered,
0:47.6	although Labour did keep hold of a few meralties.
0:50.8	Lucy, let's start with reform and in Roncorn because you are actually there.
0:56.2	Can you take us through this historic election night in Roncorn?
0:59.7	Absolutely. I mean, it's been quite an eventful night.
1:02.3	So I think that we were expecting a result initially to come in just after three in the morning.
1:07.6	It had been a really sunny day yesterday, weather-wise, I think turnout turned out to be
1:12.1	around about 46%, relatively good for our by-election. Certainly there was a feeling amongst both
1:20.0	the labour and reform sides that whatever the result would be, it was going to be a close one.
1:24.5	I don't really think anyone was expecting there to be a recount, but then we heard
1:28.1	it around about, I think it was about half three, maybe quarter to four, that reform looked
1:34.0	to be four votes ahead of labour and there were some sort of doubtful votes. So they went back and
1:41.5	decided to count them all again. And then we got the final result at 6 o'clock.
1:45.5	So I think for the candidates in question and their teams,
	...

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