Andy Burnham ‘wants someone like Gary Neville’ to be mayor of Manchester

This was the banker

The current mayor of Greater Manchester could be set to step down from his role to pursue a return to parliament after the constituency of Gorton and Denton was vacated by Andrew Gwynne.

This has led to to rumours that Burnham, dubbed the 'King of the North', could be set to return to parliament as an MP and eventually challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour premiership.

With the route laid out for Burnham, an insider at the Labour party has reportedly told the i Paper that Burnham would want someone like Gary Neville to take his place.

The insider told the paper: “If you’re Andy it’s better to have the promise of a big gun rather than popping some unknown council leader on the ballot as the mayoral candidate, then [the mayoralty] falling to Nigel Farage.

"I think he has somebody in mind in the shape of Gary Neville. Whether or not the party members would respond to that I don’t know."

Neville is a Labour member and appeared with Starmer in an election party political broadcast.

He has yet to respond to the rumours.