After suffering a bruising battle against Reform UK at the ballot box perhaps it was fitting that the Prime Minister was visiting a British defence industry firm today. Sir Keir Starmer visited Leonardo UK in Luton, Beds, where he trumpeted the firm's contributing to the new £19 million RAF StormShroud radar jamming system.

But there was no escaping the fact that at the ballot box Sir Keir's Labour Party had just been blitzed by political new kids on the block, Nigel Farage's Reform UK. Mr Farage declared the "end of two-party politics" as Reform won scores of council seats from both Labour and the Tories. Reform also won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, with new MP Sarah Pochin beating her Labour rival by an astonishing six votes.

Speaking today, Sir Keir tried to assure voters his party "get it" and the result in Runcorn was "disappointing". But there are already rumblings in the Labour Party that the PM is on the wrong track, with MPs such as Diane Abbott and Brian Leishman both publicly calling for action.

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Mr Leishman, who was first elected last year, said: "The first 10 months haven't been good enough or what the people want and if we don't improve people's living standards then the next government will be an extreme right-wing one."

Reform UK leader Mr Farage said the result was a sign that the Prime Minister had "alienated so much of his traditional base, it's just extraordinary".

He said: "For the movement, for the party, it's a very, very big moment indeed, absolutely, no question, and it's happening right across England."

Speaking in County Durham on Friday afternoon, Mr Farage said the results marked the "beginning of the end of the Conservative Party" and "the end of two-party politics". He said Reform had had "the Labour Party for lunch" and "wiped out" the Conservatives in parts of England.

Despite the losses, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch insisted that the "renewal" of the Conservatives has "only just begun" as she thanked those who had campaigned.

In a post on X, she 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."

The Runcorn and Helsby contest ran alongside local elections across England, having been triggered when former Labour MP Mike Amesbury quit after admitting to punching a constituent.

Amesbury won 53% of the vote less than a year ago at the general election, and the defeat, along with Reform gains in other Labour heartlands, will cause unease in Downing Street.

Labour said by-elections are "always difficult for the party in government", and the events surrounding the Runcorn and Helsby vote made it "even harder".