OLD Shakespeare summed it up perfectly: ‘Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows’.

No disrespect to Les Sibley, Mark Gray and Lynda Atkins, but they are the strangest of bedfellows for the Conservative group on Oxfordshire County Council to snuggle up with in order to secure power following their local elections hammering.

Sibley, in particular, a diehard Labour man is a very square peg in a political round hole. But he and his two fellow independents now hold the balance of power on the authority following yesterday’s deal, struck at County Hall.

After catching the icy blast of voter displeasure at David Cameron’s coalition government, Conservative leader Ian Hudspeth will be a relieved man today.

The alternative to this odd partnership is too awful to contemplate: an authority with no overall control and political horse trading and punch-ups distracting our local politicians from doing the job they were put there for.

It’s not perfect and it won’t be pretty at times. But Mr Hudspeth and his colleagues are just going to have to make the best of it.

As for Les Sibley, we look forward to his next encounter with the Labour group who deselected him in his Bicester seat before the elections.

His former colleagues will no doubt recall another Shakespeare line today: ‘The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on’.