Eeny-meeny........

Given the vast number of individual elections held last week, it was I suppose inevitable that there would be a few where two candidates tied with the same number of votes. Electoral law says that in such cases the winner should be decided by the drawing of lots. Just how this is to be done, however, seems to be left to the discretion of the returning officer. The most obvious way, which is most often used is to toss a coin, but sometimes more bizarre methods are employed. In St Albans for example, two tying candidates were invited to draw straws - well pencils actually - the winner being the one who picked to longer one.