Senior Tory councillor quits

Tory efforts in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election took a serious knock yesterday after the party's most senior local councillor announced he was giving up his political career in disgust.

Stuart Randall, leader of the Conservative group on Fife Council, said he would no longer stand for election due to his "frustration and disenchantment" with the party's Scottish leadership. He said it had been taken over by "an incompetent clique who can't see past the next headline".

He said: "Decision after decision has been botched and, wherever one scratches the surface, the whole edifice of the party is crumbling, yet no-one really seems to care. Image is everything. There is a vacuum at the heart of Scottish Conservative policy, nobody seems to be responsible for where the party is heading."

Mr Randall said the final straw was last week, when the party announced it wanted a second road bridge over the Forth. He first learned of the policy from a local newspaper.
The councillor for Dalgety Bay East since 1999 intends to see out the remainder of his four-year term, quitting in 2007.

He also attacked the way he was kept off the party's by-election candidate list.
Local members chose Carrie Ruxton, who yesterday campaigned for better policing.
Elsewhere Catherine Stihler, Labour candidate, joined John Reid, the defence secretary, to promise support for workers at the Rosyth naval dockyards.
The SNP's Douglas Chapman said up to 14,000 jobs could be created locally under a Nationalist growth plan.

Willie Rennie, Liberal Democrat candidate, urged Gordon Brown to maintain lifeline funding for Scotland's Mine Rescue Service.

Tom Minogue, independent candidate, was thrown out of a meeting of MSPs in Dunfermline after protesting against Forth road bridge tolls.

The Herald