Labour loses Fife councillor

The announcement comes a week after Labour lost overall control of Fife Council following a by-election.

Bob Taylor, who represents Auchmuty and Woodside West, said "irreconcilable differences" with his local branch had led to him being de-selected as a candidate for next year's council elections.

The Labour Party in Fife vowed to continue as a minority administration.

The by-election victory of independent William Ferguson in Kincardine, Culross and Low Valleyfield left the council evenly split but Mr Taylor's resignation means Labour now only controls 38 of the authority's 78 seats.

The remaining 40 seats are made up of 21 Liberal Democrats, 11 Scottish National Party councillors, three Tories, three independents, one Communist and one Democratic Left member.

Council leader Christine May pledged that Labour would not be looking to form any coalition and would continue as a minority administration until next May's local elections.

She said she was "sad" at Mr Taylor's decision to stand down as a Labour councillor after 18 years.

Labour has held overall control of Fife Council since local government reorganisation in 1995.

Considerable improvements

In the past year, however, the party has lost three by-elections and Mrs May admitted that the Officegate scandal surrounding former First Minister Henry McLeish had played a part.

But Mrs May insisted she was confident that Labour could win over the voters in Fife.

She said: "If people judge us on our record, then they will realise that considerable improvements have been delivered by Labour in Fife."

Mr Taylor, 54, who plans to stand as an independent candidate next year, said his criticism of Henry McLeish had been one of the factors leading to his fall-out with the Central Fife Constituency Labour Party (CLP).

He had appealed against the party's decision to de-select him but decided to resign before the process had been completed.

The retired college lecturer said: "I have been thinking the matter over for the last few days and I decided it would be difficult for me to fight the election within the CLP, so I decided it would be best that we went our separate ways."