By Tony Grew - 6th May 2011
Labour candidate Jon Ashworth has been elected as the new MP for Leicester South.
He won yesterday's by-election with 19,771 votes. His nearest rival, Lib Dem Zuffar Haq, won 7,693 votes.
Sir Peter Soulsby stood down as the MP to run for election as mayor of Leicester. He was elected today with more than half of first preference votes.
Ashworth won the Labour selection for the seat in March.
Before his election he worked for Ed Miliband as head of party relations and has had a long career with Labour.
Ashworth worked for Gordon Brown in the Treasury and at No 10 as deputy political secretary and acted as the leader's "link-man" with the unions.
A profile published in the Daily Telegraph in 2008 described him as a "genuine Northerner" who was "a formidable foot soldier to Brown inside party HQ for many years and was a key figure in Labour's attack unit".
On his website Ashworth describes himself as "a talented, straight-talking family man with a strong working-class background".
The 32-year-old is married and his wife Emily is expecting a child.
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