John O’Neill and Michael Simmons

Counting is continuing across England and Scotland in a set of votes for local councils and mayors, MSPs and Welsh MSs. Reform have made major gains in England, Labour has been wiped out in Wales and things are so bad for Labour that Madeline Grant has been moved to ask: Is it time to start feeling sorry for Keir Starmer? In England, Labour lost control of Tameside – in Angela Rayner’s constituency – for the first time in 47 years, shedding 16 seats as Reform gained 18. Voters were keen to kick Starmer and turnout rose from 30 per cent to 40 per cent. Wigan saw a similar increase in participation – and Labour lost all 20 seats it was defending to Reform while its vote share halved from 52 per cent to 24 per cent, with Reform taking 46 per cent.

There’s been a teal tsunami. Of the 23 councils up for election, Reform took 10 while the Tories lost 15. Reform also gained an MP in Runcorn and two mayoralties, in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire.Reform won the Runcorn by-election by just six votes after a recount requested by Labour. It’s the first by-election of this parliament and came about after Mike Amesbury received a suspended prison sentence for punching a man outside a pub. Reform’s candidate, Sarah Pochin, is the new MP – she won 12,645 votes compared with Labour’s 12,639. Here’s the national picture for councils: One Labour campaigner says what she heard on the doorstep in Runcorn ‘was all PIP and winter fuel payments’. Did Labour’s benefit cuts swing it for Reform?

Donald Trump has become the first president since Grover Cleveland to be elected to non-consecutive terms in the White House. But how did he do it? Pollsters and pundits had predicted a close-run thing with Harris ahead in key states but in the end, the betting markets were right: Donald Trump swept to victory. When Big Ben bongs at 10 p.m. on election night in the UK we’re told straight away who the next prime minister will be. American exit polls don’t quite work like that. Instead, AP and Fox News’s exit poll showed us that the economy and immigration were the top issues for voters.