TORY Shirley Bowes has made an unwelcome piece if political history by failing to attract a single vote - not even her own.

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 Great Stainton, County Durham, only stood as a favour to a friend.

The New Trimdon and Trimdon Grange ward on Sedgefield Borough Council includes Tony Blair's constituency home and the Trimdon Labour Club, where the Prime Minister has seen in successive election victories.

Despite this, Mrs Bowes put her name forward in the certain knowledge she was in for an abject defeat.

Today 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, whgo is a councillor asked me to stand I agreed so that at least 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 Hovvels 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."