Jeremy Corbyn has defended his leadership after his party lost a traditionally Labour seat in a north-of-England by-election.
Labour's Gill Troughton was defeated by the Conservatives' Trudy Harrison by 13,748 votes to 11,601 in the Copeland by-election.
Corbyn, answering questions after a speech on Brexit in London, responded to this question from ITV's Chris Ship: "Have you at any point this morning looked in the mirror and thought could the problem be me?" with a firm, "No. Next question," before swiftly moving on.
ITV's Chris Ship: "Have you at any point this morning looked in the mirror and thought could the problem be me? Corbyn: "No. Next question."
While the Labour leader did concede the Copeland result was a "disappointment", he refused to accept any blame for the loss, which is the first time since 1935 that the party has lost the previusly staunchly Labour seat.
Instead Corbyn placed the blame firmly on the "political establishment", said the media had expected Labour to lose, and called on journalists to recognise the "significance" of the party's victory in a separate by-election in Stoke-on-Trent Central.
"Labour’s victory in Stoke-on-Trent was a decisive rejection of UKIP’s policies of division and dishonesty,” he said. “But our message was not enough to win through in Copeland.”
Earlier on Friday morning, anti-Corbyn MPs had tackled their leader over the failure of the party to hold the seat in Copeland. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Labour MP John Woodcock labelled the result a "disaster".
"We are in trouble as a party," Woodcock said. "This is a time when the country really needs an effective opposition – they need an alternative to what I think is a very damaging approach to leaving the European Union."
Responding to a question on whether Labour could win a general election under Corbyn, Woodcock said: "We are not on course for victory.
"We are on course for a historic and catastrophic defeat and that will have very serious consequences for all of the communities that we represent, and the causes that the Labour party stands for."
Woodcock, who has seriously criticised Corbyn before, stopped short of calling for him to resign and instead said Labour MPs needed to examine how best they could serve their constituents.
It was not only MPs who expressed serious doubts about the Labour party's prospects in the coming election.
Writing in the New Statesman, Unison's chair Dave Prentis said the result had been "disastrous".
Prentis, a long-time ally and close friend of the Labour leader, went on to say while he did not blame Corbyn for the defeat, the loss of Copeland was indicative of wider and deeper problems within the party that as leader Corbyn was failing to address.
"Copeland is indicative of a party sliding towards irrelevance," he wrote, before later continuing: "Corbyn is the leader of the Labour party, so while he should not be held solely responsible for Labour’s downturn, he must now take responsibility for turning things around."
But senior figures around the Labour leader remain loyal. Close ally and shadow chancellor John McDonnell, also speaking on the Today programme, continued to insist Corbyn would be the next prime minister – and placed the by-election blame on Blair and party disunity.
John McDonnell: "I don't think this is about Jeremy Corbyn."
He described the Copeland result as "really disappointing" but claimed the by-election and the local situation were "unique".
McDonnell went on to deny any suggestion that Corbyn was thinking about quitting, and continued to insist the Labour would become prime minister. He called on the party to unite, and suggested that interventions by former PM Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson last week had skewed the result.
"We cannot have a situation where the week before a by-election, the former leader of our party attacks the party itself," McDonnell said.
What came up on the doorstep was Corbyn and hard leftism not disunity - anti Corbyn Labour MP
However, McDonnell did that concede voters may have been swung by Corbyn's opposition to the nuclear industry, which provides thousands of jobs in the area at the Sellafield reprocessing plant. The Labour leader's stance was heavily pushed to voters by the Conservatives during the campaign.
"They weren’t convinced that the party supported the nuclear industry," McDonnell said.
In response to criticism directed at Corbyn from former Labour voters and the Labour-leaning Mirror newspaper, McDonnell said there were "mixed views on Jeremy".
He said: "I also listened to someone on the TV last night, a woman in the television audience, who said, 'Look, what do you want from a leader? And she said, 'What I want is someone who is honest and decent, and that’s Jeremy Corbyn.' So there’s mixed views on Jeremy."
Copeland result very disappointing. But those saying "safe Labour seat" wrong. Election analyst Professor Thrasher classified as "marginal".
Momentum, the grassroots movement credited with helping to push Corbyn to the leadership role, blamed the result on "40 years of neglect by political establishment", adding: "Labour must win back the trust of those who have been left behind."
And an email sent by Momentum HQ to activists the morning after the by-election result was titled: "We proved them wrong."
How Momentum is spinning the by-elections