A real whodunnit as election fever rages

It's election time and the West Dorset countryside is awash with huge blue posters for our incumbent Tory MP, Oliver Letwin. Here and there, you see the odd splash of orange - a quiet, polite hoorah for the Liberal Democrats - but nothing at all for the others. I don't even know who our Labour candidate is. I'm aware, though, that our local Green Party candidate is a very gentle-looking Mrs Greene from Sherborne, who will probably get my vote for having the most appropriate name.

Politics is a personal thing. In the Grigg household, we don't talk about it much, as Mr Grigg and I sit on opposite sides of the fence, waiting for it to topple over.

He has never forgiven an old flatmate who completely ruined his Edward Du Cann sign by altering two letters in Cann and then stuck the poster in the window. Mr Grigg was nearly done for obscenity.

Over the years, there have been some inspired defacing of political signs. Oliver Letwin became LetwinD and outside the railway station, just over the border into Somerset, I see the Tory candidate's features have been removed to make him totally faceless.

In a nearby village, I saw two signs for what I thought were the Lib-Dems, only to find they were advertising llamas.

We steered clear of politics at the safari supper last week. But the subject reared its ugly head on Wednesday when Nobby Odd-Job, a retired policeman, announced he was conducting an investigation.

It appears one of the guests defaced an election leaflet in his study, giving that nice Mr Letwin horns, spectacles and a twirly moustache.

'That's sedition,' he said, sending Mrs Bancroft and me running to her dictionary to look it up.

'I have eliminated several suspects,' Nobby said, glaring at me intently.

Of course, I denied everything. What ever happened to innocent until proved guilty?

This morning, I receive an email:

Lengthy investigations reveal:

'The journalist with the pen in the study' to be the main suspect'

A minute later, the UKIP battle van pulls up outside my house, with flags a-waving and loudspeaker a-hailing.

While the driver goes to the shop for his Daily Mail, I am half tempted to stick a banana up the van's exhaust pipe. But I think better of it. Would I get legal aid for a charge of sedition? Probably not.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x