Lucy Powell calls for party to make more use of Greater Manchester mayor after Gorton and Denton defeat

Andy Burnham would have won the Gorton and Denton byelection, Labour’s deputy leader said as she called for the party to make more use of the Greater Manchester mayor.

Overturning a 13,000 Labour majority from the general election, Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, became the party’s fifth MP on Friday in an area that had returned Labour MPs for nearly a century.