George Galloway is considering running against Andy Burnham in the Greater Manchester mayoral race.

The divisive new Rochdale MP, who secured a shock by-election win, accused Mr Burnham of having "abandoned" Rochdale, which is in the Greater Manchester area. But Mr Burnham hit out at the fact Mr Galloway was elected just two weeks ago and already had his eye elsewhere, proving that "Rochdale is just somewhere he has used for his own ends".

Mr Galloway hinted to the Manchester Evening News that he is considering standing against Mr Burnham in May's mayoral election. It comes after the new MP took aim at the northern mayor in his first speech in Parliament this week.

He told MPs he did not feel any hostility towards Mr Burnham "until recently weeks", adding: "This town, which was once one of the most prosperous in England, is now one of the poorest, abandoned not just by the government but abandoned by the Mayor of Greater Manchester for whom I have no animus - quite the contrary, at least until recent weeks.

"But he has to understand that he is the Mayor of Greater Manchester, not just the mayor of Manchester. What about the towns around Manchester that get the wrong end of the stick?"

Asked by the MEN whether he would stand against Mr Burnham, he said: "If I stand it would be on a platform of a better deal for Manchester's surrounding towns. Andy Burnham has been seduced by the undoubtedly bright lights of the metropolis. But it's fairly dark and austere out here in 'Greater' Manchester."

A spokesman for Mr Burnham said: "Two weeks to the day after being elected, the new MP for Rochdale now says he wants another job. Well he will have to choose as he can’t do both.

"He couldn’t have made it clearer if he tried that Rochdale is just somewhere he has used for his own ends. He also seems unaware that Rochdale will see the biggest change in 40 years a week on Sunday as its buses go back under public control - an inconvenient fact which destroys the entire basis of Mr Galloway’s Mayoral bid."

Mr Galloway was a Labour MP from 1987 to 2003, before being expelled from the party. He then served as an independent MP, before joining the now dissolved left-wing Respect Party, for which he served as an MP between 2005-2010, and again in 2012-2015.

He went on to found the far-left Workers Party of Britain, which he now leads. He is the only MP from the party to sit in Parliament, alongside 348 Tory MPs, 199 Labour MPs, 43 SNP MPs and 15 Lib Dems, as well as independent MPs and those from other parties.

Outside of politics, Mr Galloway is recognised by many as having appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006 where he role-played being a cat and licked the hand of fellow contestant, actress Rula Lenska. In an interview with the Telegraph in 2022, she described the scene as the worst moment of her career.