It is extremely rare in the British parliamentary system for an independent candidate outside the party system to win a seat, but Dr Richard Taylor, who has died aged 89, achieved it not once but twice, for the Worcestershire seat of Wyre Forest at the 2001 and 2005 general elections.
At the time, only Taylor and the former BBC correspondent Martin Bell, who stood as an anti-sleaze candidate in Tatton at the 1997 general election, had won seats as independents, and Bell was elected only once. Curiously, both men had been at the Leys independent school in Cambridge together, and Bell advised Taylor when he first stood.
