Interesting experience when voting in Penzance for the constituency of St Ives, now renamed St Ives, West Cornwall and Isles of Scilly but with the old boundaries. After voting I said to a teller ''I suppose we'll have to wait until tomorrow afternoon for the result as ballot boxes have to be flown from the Isles of Scilly'' but she replied ''oh, no, we're counting here tonight and Linda Taylor has told us the result from Scilly will be phoned in.''
Now, Mrs Taylor is the Conservative leader of the unitary Cornwall Council, but her name is on the election material disseminated by Derek Thomas, the Tory candidate here and its ex-MP. Her address is given as the St Ives constituency Conservative Association in Penzance, the same as Thomas. The Isles of Scilly have always been included in St Ives, and in all previous elections that I'm aware of no voting boxes were opened until they were all together, which I thought was a legal requirement so that all candidates and their representatives could monitor them. Was the teller wrong, will Mrs Taylor contravene electoral law, or what? The possibility of phoning results through is hardly one that has just become feasible! If there were a tight result here, which there often has been in previous years, and the Tory was pronounced the victor, I could foresee trouble. As it happens, Andrew George is expected to trounce the Tory for the LibDems and regain the seat after a break of nine years.