The chairman of the Labour Party travelled to Workington for the launch of the campaign by the constituency’s party candidate.

Ian Lavery, who is also Labour’s national co-campaign co-ordinator, headed to the Carnegie Theatre, on Finkle Street, Workington, for the launch of Sue Hayman’s campaign.

Mrs Hayman said: “I’m really grateful to Ian Lavery, who’s leading Labour’s election campaign nationally, for visiting our really well-attended campaign launch event in Workington this weekend. It was great to see so many supporters from across the constituency there, and I look forward to campaigning hard with them all over the next five weeks.”

The Labour candidate became MP for the constituency in 2015 and was re-elected at the 2017 general election and has been shadow minister for environment since 2016.

Last week Mrs Hayman and a team of Labour-supporting women stood outside Mrs Hayman’s office in the town wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Workington woman votes too!”

It was in response to a London-based think-tank identifying ‘Workington man’ as the target voter for any party to win the election.

She said: “A lot of men were extremely disgruntled about that, as were the women. They weren’t happy about being ignored. The Workington constituency is a lot more than just Workington – it’s also Cockermouth, Maryport, Aspatria and all the villages.”

She added the profile was patronising.