The Tory candidate who didn't get a SINGLE vote (no, she didn't even vote for herself)

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It was always going to be a long shot for a Conservative to taste victory in a ward occupied by one Tony Blair.

But 72-year-old Mrs Bowes managed to come in with an almost unprecedented zero.

In an electoral quirk she couldn't even vote for herself because she lives outside the ward she was standing for.

Mrs Bowes, who lives on a farm in the quaint village of Great Stainton, Co Durham, only stood as a favour to a friend.

Conservatives are a rarity on Sedgefield District Council, but the New Trimdon and Trimdon Grange ward is a particular minefield.

Home to Labour PM and the Trimdon Labour Club, where he has seen in successive election victories, even the most die-hard of Conservatives would throw in the towel.

But not Mrs Bowes. She put her name forward in the certain knowledge she was in for an abject defeat.

She said: "I knew I wasn't going to win but I hoped I might pick up at least one vote.

"I couldn't vote for myself because I don't live in the ward and I'm afraid no one else thought it was worth turning out for me.

"I never have had any true political ambitions but I support the Conservatives and said I'd help out.

"There was no Tory candidate in the ward and when my friend, who is a councillor asked me to stand I agreed so that at leats the party was represented.

"I didn't campaign or get any leaflets done or anything, I didn't even attend.

"It seems as though Conservatives are in even shorter supply in Trimdon than I imagined."

The ward was won by Labour's Lucy Howels with 441 votes and even the BNP managed to garner 75 votes for their candidate Amanda Marie Foster.

Mrs Bowes fought such a low key campaign that she didn't even tell her farmer son Graham.

She said: "He'd have thought I was daft, so I kept it to myself."