A top Downing Street aide has resigned after sending sexually explicit messages about independent MP Diane Abbott, Sky News understands.

Paul Ovenden, who was the director of strategy at Number 10, is understood to have left the role on Monday after a number of instant messages from 2017 became public.

Sky News understands he did so to avoid becoming a "distraction" for Sir Keir Starmer, just days after he was forced to sack the UK's ambassador to the US - Peter Mandelson - over his ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

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The messages, exchanged between Mr Ovenden and a female colleague, contained the graphic retelling of a conversation he reportedly overheard about Ms Abbott while at a party.

The former aide has alleged these were not his original w

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