NOTHING intrigues Brakespeare more that the skirmishes involved in selecting candidates for the Conservative Party to stand in local elections.

Its seems hardly a week goes by without your diarist overhearing detail of some of the intrigue that goes on behind closed doors.

Take, for example, the executive group meeting last Thursday to find a county council candidate to replace John West in March North.

District councillor Peter Tunley expected to have a broad level of support to win the nomination but in the event only polled one of the 25 or so votes from the executive members.

Trouble with politicians, as Peter discovered, was that those who told him to his face they would support him, on the night changed their mind.

All of which might sound familiar to devotees of England’s World Cup bid when we, as a nation, failed to achieve the votes needed despite assurances to the contrary.

In Cllr Tunley’s case he kind of threw many of his toys out of the pram - declining an invitation, I hear, to remain a March town councillor.

Good news on the night, though, for another district councillor Steve Count who, having risen quickly through the ‘ranks’, can expect to add a county council seat to his growing ‘portfolio’ of achievements.

Cllr Count’s luck began, some reckon, when he won the nomination for his current district seat four years ago and tied among the Tory selection committee with town councillor Andrew Donnelly. The matter was settled with a toss of the coin.