Senior Labour figure quits party

A former chief press officer for First Minister Jack Mcconnell has announced she is resigning her Labour membership because of the “hostile takeover” of the party by Jeremy Corbyn and his followers.

Susan Dalgety, who was also deputy leader of the ruling Labour group at Edinburgh City Council for two years, said the party had been a huge part of her life since she joined it in 1980.

But revealing her decision to quit on Facebook, Ms Dalgety said: “An unlikely coalition of grumpy old blokes in Lenin caps and wide-eyed Millennials in Converse, aided and abetted by some sinister apparatchiks, now controls our party.

“I have no heart to go over the reasons I am leaving there are too many, but in the final analysis it boils down to this: the Labour Party I loved is dead.”

She said she does not intend to join another party.