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Labour wrenched the seat back to restore Manchester's ruling party's full hand in the Blackley parliamentary constituency.

Qassim Afzal, one of the town hall's most colourful characters, won his seat in a by-election in 1998 but this time lost to Labour's Afzal Khan on a 35.8 per cent turn out which was the city's highest.

In 1998 Quassim Afzal secured victory by a narrow 52 votes but was beaten this time by 220 when Afzal Khan polled 1,602 to his 1,382.

The Liberal Democrat has pledged to challenge Labour's deputy leader Martin Pagel who will be defending his seat in 2001.

They became arch rivals when they first faced each other in May 1998 and Martin Pagel clung to power with a majority of just 57 before Qassim Afzal finally won a seat the following October.

Speaking before the polls closed on Thursday, following a sometimes bitter campaign in the run up to the election, Qassim said: "Either way, Martin Pagel will lose. If I'm not re-elected, I'll stand against him next time."

Cllr Richard Leese (right) with Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley, on election night

In Crumpsall, Manchester City Council leader Richard Leese, romped home with a convincing 1,003 majority over his closest rival Jacqueline Rowland standing for the Conservative Party.

Cllr Leese was pleased by the result from a 24.6 per cent turnout. He said: "I would have liked to have seen a bigger turnout but it was a good result.

"We experimented this time with the shop and vote weekend which was very successful. We'll be looking more closely at that and the results of some of the experiments in other areas to see if we can learn lessons for future elections."