Hundreds of people joined First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale at a Glasgow vigil for murdered MP Jo Cox.

Glasgow-based human rights lawyer Helen Ntabeni who organised the tribute through Facebook said she felt compelled to take action to  combat the women's fear of violence and to show that "female politicians know we've got their backs".

The political leaders were joined by around 300 members  of the public who also wanted to pay their respects to the Labour MP who was shot and stabbed yesterday.

There was applause as Ms Sturgeon and Ms Dugdale embraced as they placed flowers laid flowers beside a picture of Ms Cox surrounded by candles.

The vigil started with a minute's silence among the gathering and a book of condolence was opened for people to pay their respects.

Nicola Sturgeon, speaking beneath the Walter Scott monument said she hoped that out of the tragedy the public might "reflect that we (politicians) are not all bad".

Ms Dugdale said that politics was a "noble cause" and said she hoped Jo Cox's death would herald a "new beginning for our politics".

Many current and former Labour politicians, including Douglas Alexander and Anas Sarwar, and Glasgow City Council leader Frank McAveety were in attendance along with a large contingent of SNP MPs and MSPs.

Ms Cox, a mother of two was attacked in the street outside her constituency surgery in Birstall, near Leeds in West Yorkshire.

She was stabbed and shot three times with a pistol yesterday after holding a constituency surgery in Birstall, West Yorkshire.

Tommy Mair, 52, who was born in Kilmarnock, was detained shortly after the attack and remains in police custody.

Ms Ntabeni, also a mother-of-two, said she had never organised anything like it before and said: "Isn't it an amazing turnout."

She added: "We are trying to get women involved in politics and this is what women fear. They fear the violence, they fear the antagonism towards them so I had to do something so that female politicians know that we've got their backs and we are not going to let this happen again and that we are going to bring something positive from this for her family and for all the people who would have been helped by her.

"My two youngest are three and five and I know how much my girls need me, the amount they take from me every day and through the night. I cannot believe those children haven't got their mother any more.  It's tragic. It's absolutely horrendous."

Ms Dugdale said Ms Cox "was a crusader for Labour values, in my view one of the bright hopes in British politics and that is what we have lost".

She said: Politics gets a bad name.  Amongst all of the scandals, the narcissism of small differences, the petty point scoring, sometimes we forget it is a  noble cause and Jo Cox embodied the very best of that politics.   

"She embodied that sense that it was after a moral crusade, and she did that moral crusade with humour and with love.

"And first and foremost she believed that all humans were equal and everyone had a right to peace, to justice and prosperity.

"Ultimately I hope that in the days and weeks ahead, the loss of Jo Cox's life, the end of her life, becomes a new beginning for our politics.

Ms Sturgeon who embraced the Scottish Labour leader before the First Minister took to the podium to pay tribute said everyone felt a "deep sense of shock and an overwhelming sadness" over the killing.

"She clearly was an inspiration to everybody whose lives she touched," she said.

"In so many ways she was what all of us would want our politicians, our MPs and our elected representatives to be; somebody who is in politics to make a difference, who was in politics to do good for people that she cared about, somebody of passion and compassion and determination, somebody who was clearly bursting with energy for the causes that she cared about.

"As Kez has so rightly said, politics is a rough trade and politics should be a rough trade, we are public representatives, our job is to represent the people we serve and their job is to hold us to account.  

"But sometimes we forget, and Jo herself said this in her first speech she made to the House of Commons about her own constituency, whatever divides us there is much much more that unites us."

A similar event was held in Edinburgh attended by Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson and Labour MP Ian Murray.