Glenda Jackson has announced that she is to retire from politics before the next election.

The MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, who was re-elected in May 2010 with just 42 votes, said she would be too old to stand again in 2015.

She told the Hampstead and Highgate Express: "I will not be putting myself forward for re-election in 2015. I will be nearly 80."

Ms Jackson, who won two Academy Awards during her career as an actress, was first elected as MP for Hampstead and Highgate in 1992.

She enjoyed a brief spell as a junior minister under Tony Blair, but became a vocal critic of him and his policies, including the Iraq War. She is often critical of Israel, commenting earlier this year that though she was not anti-Israel, she was "anti the Israeli government."

In March she joined 30 MPs in calling for the clause passing responsibility for war crimes arrest warrants to the DPP to be removed from the government's proposed changes to universal jurisdiction law.