LABOUR held onto the Wythenshawe and Sale East seat with a comfortable majority after yesterday’s by-election.

UKIP beat the Tories to second place.

Michael Kane won with 13,261 votes, beating UKIP's John Bickley, with 4,301, in second.

Conservative Rev Daniel Critchlow came third on 3,479 votes, and Lib Dem Mary Di Mauro, was fourth with 1,176.

The Liberal Democrats lost their deposit, as their share of the vote tumbled by 17 per cent to below the key five per cent level.

Turnout was 28.2 per cent compared with 54.3 per cent in 2010.

Other candidates were the Green Party's Nigel Woodcock, with 748 votes, the British National Party's Eddy O'Sullivan, with 708, and Capt Chaplington-Smythe, of the Monster Raving Loony Party, with 288.