Gardeners have used spray paint to avoid a thorny problem of political bias in a flower bed.

Petal power: Peter Berry, assistant chief executive with City of York Council, with the election display flowers which have been painted in party colours

When those organising the election at City of York Council decided to emblazon a floral reminder to the voters on a grassy bank under the city walls, there was one small problem - the colours.

How would a natural display of green and red plants go down with true blue Tories and yellow tie-wearing Liberal Democrats?

Not very well, council chiefs feared. So gardeners armed with spray cans of red, green, yellow and blue set to work on the giant "1999 Vote" flower bed.

The result is a brightly-coloured display of thousands of plants on the bed, near the railway station.

And Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the Green Party are all included.

Brian Williams, of the council's environmental services department, said: "We couldn't just have green or red plants, could we? So we had to spray some of the plants different colours to cover all the parties. Now we've got blue, red, green and yellow, all in equal sizes."

And he said: "We even had to spray green on the green plants, because as they get older they fade to yellow."

Just like political parties?

"I couldn't possibly comment," said Mr Williams.

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