WILL SHE? WON’T SHE?
In the 2001 general election Dr Richard Taylor, previously a consultant physician at Kidderminster General Hospital, stood as an independent candidate, largely on the single issue of the closure of the hospital’s Accident and Emergency department. He annihilated the opposition, unseating the Labour member and coming in with a majority of 18 000. He remained at Westminster for 10 years.
During the previous decade David Hare had written three highly acclaimed plays about British institutions — the clergy (Racing Demon, 1990), the law (Murmuring Judges, 1991), and politics (The Absence of War, 1993). In 2006, The Vertical Hour opened on Broadway, not in London, because of a falling out with the National Theatre. The central topic of the play was the Iraq War. One of the characters, played …