Dalgety joined the
Labour Party in about 1980 and that was where she met her husband. She came to notice as the head of communication for the Scottish First Minister
Jack McConnell. In 2005 she made her first visit to Malawi when she organised the first official visit by the Scottish parliament and that visit was part of a continuing partnership between the two countries. For seven years she served on
Edinburgh City Council rising to be the deputy leader. In 2014 she campaigned for Scotland to remain a part of the UK. She complained about the division that the referendum created and she was thankful when 55% of the vote agreed with her position. In 2018 she announced that she was still a supporter of Labour, but the
emergence of Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 meant that she left the Labour party. "The Spirit of Malawi" was the resulting book and it included interviews with many Malawian people including the leading journalist
Edyth Kambalame and
Vice President Chilima. Their book "
The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht" was published and joined the bestseller lists in 2024. It is a book of essays written by influential people, including
J. K. Rowling, and it puts forward the case for
gender-critical feminism. At the beginning of 2025 the
Scotland Malawi Partnership appointed Professor Jeremy Bagg to succeed Professor
Heather Cubie as the chair. The partnership board also agreed the appointment of three voluntary vice chairs. The senior vice-chair was Dalgety. In June 2025 she argued that "Charity doesn’t begin at home", citing the example of
Rotary International in Scotland and its international reach. In 2025, Dalgety and
Lucy Hunter Blackburn met
National Library of Scotland (NLS) librarian and CEO
Amina Shah and the NLS Chair Sir
Drummond Bone to discuss the controversy surrounding their best selling book. The NLS had removed and then returned it to their 'Dear Library' centenary exhibition of books which were nominated by members of the public. Dalgety, Blackburn, Shah and Bone confirmed the book's return. == Private life ==