Labour has won a council by-election prompted by the resignation of Willie Clarke, known as the last elected communist councillor in the UK.

Mr Clarke, 81, retired in June owing to ill health after serving as a councillor since 1973. He was awarded the Freedom of Fife last month.

He was originally a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and later the Communist Party of Scotland but in more recent years had been sitting as an independent.

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The by-election in The Lochs ward of Fife Council was contested unsuccessfully by a candidate for the Communist Party of Britain, which emerged from a CPGB split in the 1980s.

First-preference voting was: Labour 1,318, SNP 1,079, C 270, Communist Party of Britain 86, Green 45. The turnout was 27.8%.