Alistair Carmichael's 'delight' as legal challenge fails

Alistair Carmichael said he was "always confident that we would win... a highly politically motivated case" after four campaigners who had hoped to overturn his election as MP for Orkney and Shetland lost their case.

Judges at the Electoral Court in Edinburgh said it had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Carmichael had committed an "illegal practice".

Mr Carmichael's constituents raised the action under the Representation of the People Act 1983, claiming he misled voters over a memo, leaked before May's election, which claimed that Nicola Sturgeon wanted David Cameron to remain prime minister.

Both the ambassador and the first minister denied the accuracy of the civil service memo.