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Long ago, before younger readers were born and older readers will easily remember, two men made history: Martin Bell and Richard Taylor.

John Major (prime minister from 1990-97) promised honesty and decency in politics but his government got caught up in a run of scandals and skullduggery. MPs and ministers had affairs, took cash for asking questions in parliament, accepted undeclared gifts from loaded foreign governments, lied.

In 1997, Bell, an intrepid BBC foreign correspondent, stood as an independent, anti-sleaze candidate in Tatton and won. Taylor, a hospital doctor in Kidderminster, who died last month, stood as an independent because he opposed the downgrading of the local hospital by Labour and the health authority. He won in 2001 and 2005.

I met Bell and Taylor, both dogged, ethical men who were in the game not for egotistical reasons, but to protect public interests. They disrupted the status-quo, essentially a duopoly.

In March, I wrote this in a column: “What if our Commons had, say, 50 candidates unattached to the major parties? Come with me through the thought experiment… Independents cannot be whipped and bullied into voting for government policies or opposition positions… Independents would also challenge the dirty tricks that are used to obstruct debates or push through legislation… Traditionalists on all sides will find this modest proposal quite mad or extremely alarming. I say, it is the only way to save this fast rotting democracy.”

You can imagine how joyously I reacted to the election results. The Tories were ousted; Labour won. Better than that, six independents, nine SNP MPs, 72 Lib Dems, four........

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