LABOUR MUST DO BETTER

Starmer told to listen to voters after poll shock

- LIZZY BUCHAN, ASHLEY COWBURN and PHIL CARDY

KEIR Starmer has been urged to listen to voters after Reform UK seized control of a Labour stronghold in a dramatic by-election win.

Nigel Farage's party won Runcorn and Helsby by just six votes, overturning Labour's 14,696 majority to elect Sarah Pochin as their fifth MP.

The right-wing outfit also swept to victory in local elections across England, winning hundreds of seats off the Tories, who saw their vote squeezed by Reform on the right and Sir Ed Davey's Liberal Democrats on the left.

Reform also took control of Durham Council in a bitter blow to Labour, which lost control of the authority in 2021 for the first time in a century.

The area, which elected six Labour MPs last year, was at the centre of the Miners' Strike of the 1980s and is home to the annual Miners' Gala. Labour held on to mayoralties in Doncaster, the West of England and North Tyneside.