By-election revealed Hopefuls set out their stalls for your vote as they bid to replace the late Sir Tony Lloyd as Rochdale’s Member of Parliament

LAST week, Lancashire County Council’s Labour leader Azhar Ali was chosen from a shortlist of three to stand for the party hoping to hold onto the seat.

Coun Ali, from Brierfield in Lancashire, has been a councillor in Nelson East since 2013.

He joined Pendle Council aged 24 and has also served a five-year stint as a government advisor under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

When nominated for selection, he said: “Along with the council, the NHS, public bodies and local businesses, I will work to bring new investment to

Rochdale, strengthening our economy and public services.

“The people here in Rochdale have had enough of paying the price for Tory failure.

“They have crashed our economy and brought our NHS to its knees.

“After five Tory Prime Ministers, we are left with mortgages, rents, food bills and energy costs out of control, longer hospital waiting lists and neighbourhood policing destroyed.

“We cannot afford another five years of Tory failure and this by-election is a chance to send a clear message to Rishi Sunak: Give us a general election now.”

THE previous MP for Rochdale will also be standing in the by-election for Reform UK – the party founded by EX-UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

Ex-labour MP Simon Danczuk was the late Sir Tony Lloyd’s predecessor in the before he was ousted from the party for sending lewd messages to a teenage girl. He was first elected into the Rochdale seat in 2010, but later contested the seat in 2017 as an independent, receiving 1.8 per cent of the vote.

Announcing his candidacy, he said: “Our town is being neglected by the main political parties. Locally,

Labour is failing to protect our people and support local businesses. Nationally, the Conservatives are failing to grow our economy and are leaving our borders open to illegal immigration.

“Labour refuse to say what they will do if they get into Government. The Tories refuse to do in Government what the public want. One has broken Britain, the other will bankrupt it. Rochdale and our country are crying out for change.

“We are all proud of Rochdale, its people and its fantastic history.

“But Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak don’t care about our town, they continue to take us for granted.”