Election cancelled in Thirsk and Malton
A couple of days after nominations for the general election had closed I found myself standing in front of a live outside broadcast camera alongside the war memorial in the market square at Malton in North Yorkshire.
A fitting place for an event that has happened just eight times since the Great War.
A short time before my arrival the returning officer in the constituency had announced that the election in the Thirsk and Malton constituency had been scrapped.
Tragically, just a couple of hours after turning in his nomination papers, the UK Independence Party candidate John Boakes was found dead at home.
John, who was just 63, was describes as "a true gentleman" by shocked friends and colleagues in the party.
On his official UKIP blog John himself wrote of how he had overcome heart problems in the past.
These circumstances are relatively rare but the law is clear.
If any candidate is unable to take part after nominations have closed then a new election has to be called.
That means time has to be given for fresh writs to be issued; nominations declared and a period of campaigning.
In the case of Thirsk and Malton that means voters will go to the polls three weeks after everybody else on Thursday 27 May.
If the general election is as close as most forecasters expect then it might give an bit more importance to a contest which the Conservatives are expected to win with a thumping majority.
Thirsk and Malton is a new constituency after the redrawing of boundaries in North Yorkshire but this is seen as true blue country.
If the 2005 election had been fought on these new boundaries a computer model predicts that the Conservative majority would have been in excess of 14,000.
Despite the rarity of these circumstances, this is the second general election in succession that the death of a candidate has caused the election to be scrapped. In 2005 a similar situation arose in South Staffordshire.
The previous one before that had been in 1951 in Barnsley.
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I'm Len Tingle, the Political Editor for BBC Yorkshire. You can see me most Sunday lunchtimes when I hit the road with the Politics Show's live satellite truck. I also reflect the region's politics on Look North, the BBC's local radio stations and our web pages. Welcome to my blog.
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