IN REBECCA, Daphne du Maurier’s classic thriller, the beauty of Cornwall disguises the paranoia and scheming the heroine faces. The same goes for the salty fresh air of Falmouth: the newcomer would never know that this is one of the most poisoned seats of the general election. Here politicians are civil to each other, but don’t be fooled, it is an uneasy pact hiding bitter histories that they would rather not air.

Take Ashley Crossley, the Conservative candidate in Falmouth & Camborne and close challenger to Labour in this three-way marginal. This gay, clean-cut barrister was almost sacked by his association last year amid feverish accusations of homophobia.

He survived deselection only for several members of his executive to defect to the UK Independence Party, which came first in the area in the European elections, but has itself split again in the seat with the arrival of Veritas. Oh, and a former Tory MP, who held the seat for 22 years, is standing again, as an independent.

“Tories in turmoil!” the Liberal Democrat leaflet crowed, but Julia Goldsworthy, the 26-year-old Lib Dem candidate, is herself challenged by a well-known local for the plain old Liberal Party.

Meanwhile Candy Atherton, the Blair loyalist who defeated the Conservative Sebastian Coe in 1997, has recently been vindicated in a messy employment tribunal brought by her former researcher. Finally, the candidate for Mebyon Kernow (Party for Cornwall in Kernewek, the local language) was born in Surrey.

Confused? Yes, well so is the seat, swinging between Labour and Conservative over the decades like a wind chime in one of Falmouth’s New Age trinket shops. It is the only Cornwall constituency not to have fallen to the Lib Dems.

“We have a history of maverick candidates here,” Ms Atherton, 49, said, referring to the voters’ preference for independent-minded politicians.

But is she one of them? A newspaper recently named her “top toady” for rebelling against the Government only six times out of 1,521. She concentrates on her heartland in the north of the seat, including the poor former mining town of Redruth, where she ordered a cappuccino before lunch.

A cappuccino? Yes, well, she is a former mayor of Islington and Labour Party press officer, although with a majority of 4,527, she has also been hard at work in her constituency, campaigning, for example, for the new university in the area.

While confident of winning, she was also flustered and defensive, especially about her local press coverage. When John Prescott arrived on a morale-boosting visit, even his bulk could not hide a determined group of pro-hunt protesters and in the end the Labour Party had to block them with the Prescott Express bus.

Mr Crossley, 33, said that just as Ms Atherton may have been carried in by the new Labour tide of 1997, she may be carried out again by Iraq. He brushed off his deselection, saying that only two people had raised his sexuality on the doorstep.

Instead he has been trying to invade Ms Atherton’s turf, targeting old Labour supporters disillusioned by the war. He believes that his tough crime and anti-EU message can win them over, or at least get his turnout above Ms Atherton’s. “There is a big swing there, and it’s not to the Lib Dems,” he said. “They are very earthy in their outlook, not wishy-washy in anything, not Lib Dem.”

He and Ms Atherton want to make this a two-way fight, but are prevented by the efforts of Ms Goldsworthy, who won 24 per cent of the vote for the Lib Dems last time to the Tories’ 29 per cent. With the fracturing of the Conservative vote, and the toady reputation of Ms Atherton, the seat can no longer resist the Cornish tendency to the Lib Dems, she said.

There the conclusion would have rested: the Labour incumbent is running scared, the Conservative is charming the hearts of her voters, and the Lib Dem is cleaning up from both.

If not for the fact that they all changed considerably at a hustings in Camborne that night, attended by more than a hundred locals. Ms Goldsworthy’s speaking showed inexperience, Mr Crossley was funny and nice but did not go in for the kill, and Ms Atherton provoked boos from the audience by speaking her mind: most untoady-like behaviour.

No wonder they changed their outlook after dark; in Falmouth & Camborne the future is murky.

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