SAY what you like about Anne McIntosh, she has certainly been one of Parliament’s more colourful characters.

The Thirsk and Malton MP has held important positions – she’s currently chair of the Commons’ Environment Select Committee.

But whether upstaging the Queen in a mustard yellow outfit at the state opening of Parliament in 2003, or insisting that only Yorkshire puddings made in God’s Own County deserve the right to use the name, she has always been a little eccentric, too. She has also been a source of division in her own constituency party, however.

Now a second attempt to deselect her has succeeded. Undeterred, she has pledged that, at the next election, she will stand in Thirsk and Malton as an Independent.

It promises to be a cracking contest between her and whichever Conservative is unfortunate enough to be selected to oppose her.