Boris Johnson has said the Tories’ victory in the Hartlepool by-election was a mandate for the party to carry on delivering its policies to “build back better” after the pandemic.

Visiting the constituency with the winning candidate Jill Mortimer, the Prime Minister told reporters: “It’s a mandate for us to continue to deliver, not just for the people of Hartlepool and the fantastic people of the north east, but for the whole of the country.

“If there is a lesson out of this whole election campaign across the whole of the UK is that the public want us to get on with focusing on their needs and their priorities, coming through the pandemic and making sure we build back better.”

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