A MARLOW councillor who stood against Theresa May for the Maidenhead parliamentary seat called for an end to tactical voting after the Conservative MP was re-elected.

Janet Pritchard, who sits on Great Marlow Parish Council, contested the seat for the first time last week as the Labour candidate and says she was pleased with the overall result.

Mrs Pritchard, of Daw's End, Marlow Common, received nine per cent of the vote scooping 4,144 votes, but said the Lib Dems who came second, had been trying hard to remove the Tory MP by asking Labour supporters for their vote.

The move was renounced by both Mrs Pritchard and Mrs May at their post-result speeches.

Mrs Pritchard, 57, said: "I don't agree with negative voting if you vote negatively you just don't know what you'll end up with."

Mrs Pritchard praised the actions of her 20 helpers and said people as old as 80 were giving out leaflets for her.

Mrs May took an increased 50 per cent share of the vote from the 2001 election.

Meanwhile, a Cookham woman who stood against Gordon Brown said her post-result speech about pensions forced the Chancellor to take notice.

Elizabeth Kwantes, of New Road, contested the Chancellor's Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat in Scotland to highlight the "plight" of pensions under the current government.

Mrs Kwantes, 48, who also heads the Cookham Youth Project, has no connection with Scotland at all, and was standing purely to highlight the "raw deal" pensioners are facing in the UK.

She claims pensioners deserve more money to survive on and made the stand in Scotland as more of a publicity stunt.

And despite receiving only 47 votes and losing her deposit, Mrs Kwantes said she thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

She said: "We got some publicity and I gave a speech afterwards and got to shake Gordon's hand.

"At my speech I said we had one of the worst pension plans in Europe and Gordon said he would be discussing the issue. I also got on TV when Gordon did his speech on the news."

Mrs Kwantes, an independent who fronts the Action on Pensions group, stood with nine other candidates five of whom lost their deposit. Company director Mrs Kwantes is currently taking her fight for a better deal for pensioners to the EU.