For'ard, For'ard?

They can't wait until May to fill a seat, so will David Taylor's successor be a Co-operative, and committed Christian, countryside conservationist, Campaign Group member, and friend of Chen Guangcheng? Anti-war and anti-Trident, with doubts about ID cards, about other "anti-terrorism" measures, and about those hung on the peg of "climate change"?

Note that I do not ask whether the Labour candidate will be such a person. What matters is that the new MP is. On the Co-operative point, while you certainly may not stand for any party other than that "with which the Co-operative Party has an electoral arrangement", there is no mention of a ban on standing as an Independent, and certainly not of any ban on standing as an Independent against a candidate who is Labour but not Co-operative.