What if our Commons had, say, 50 candidates unattached to the major parties? Imagine that. Come with me through this thought experiment.

Politicians and commentators of all hues are having a collective nervous breakdown about the Rochdale by-election result. I don’t share their frenzy and panic, much of it based on mistruths and arrogance. Rochdale does not belong to Labour; voters were expressing human concern not radicalism; it was not the “Muslim vote” that got George Galloway the seat.

The borough is 74 per cent white, 19 per cent Asian, four per cent Black, two per cent mixed and two per cent other ethnicities. A wide range of residents chose him, and as importantly, David Tully, who finished second. Tully, a vehicle repair shop owner, received 6,638 votes – more than the Conservatives and Labour combined. Simon Kelner’s column on Tuesday about the local anti-Tory mobilisation in Totnes is further proof of voter dissatisfaction with the usual way of doing politics. This is good news.

Independents cannot be whipped and bullied into voting for government policies or opposition positions. If we’d had such a bloc in 2018, for example, they might have stopped the Tories from voting through, by a........

© iNews