A PARISH councillor at the centre of controversy over her pornographic website has quit - to set her sights even higher.

Former stripper Christine Cranfield is resigning from the parish council of Clifton Without, near York, after three months as a co-opted member.

But she hopes to make a return to public life after announcing plans to stand for election as the local MP.

Ms Cranfield has already compared herself to the porn star Illona Staller, who became an MP in her native Italy.

She hopes to emulate that success by standing as an Independent for the City of York constituency at the next General Election.

She pledged: "I want to get student grants re-instated and to crack down on anti-social behaviour in York."

The 35-year-old, from Brailsford Crescent, Clifton, runs her raunchy website under the pseudonym of Angelique - and she has vowed to continue with it.

She said the reaction of her fellow parish councillors to the news of it had gone too far.

"It is a striptease website. The text chat gets a bit hot, but it is nothing over the top," she said yesterday.

But parish council chairman Vic Paylor said: "I come from a school that thinks pornography is a sickness. It is a sickness in society today."