I have the following script:
import socks
import socket
socks.setdefaultproxy(socks.PROXY_TYPE_SOCKS5, \"127.0.0.1\", 9050)
socket.socket = socks.socksocket
Tor wrote a new TOR control library in Python, stem. It can be found on PyPI. They provide some nice tutorials how to work with it, one of them explains how to change your identity:
from stem import Signal
from stem.control import Controller
with Controller.from_port(port = 9051) as controller:
controller.authenticate()
controller.signal(Signal.NEWNYM)
Make sure your config is correct.