Labour hopeful says party has lost touch with voters

LABOUR has to listen more to ordinary voters, party leadership candidate Diane Abbott said as she visited Edinburgh.

She claimed the party had lost touch with people while it was in government at Westminster.

And she said: "While I'm a London-based MP, I was not part of the New Labour machine - the other candidates were all part of that for 13 years. The New Labour machine just got cut off from ordinary people and was not listening to people on issues like the Iraq war."

During her visit, Ms Abbott joined Labour candidate Bill Cook campaigning in the Liberton/Gilmerton council by-election.