Dennis Skinner
October 2020
Dennis Edward Skinner (born 11 February 1932) served as a Labour MP for Bolsover from 1970 to 2019.
Dennis is well known for his left-wing views and acerbic wit which was often displayed when Black Rod came into the House of Commons to summon MPs to the House of Lords to hear the Queen’s speech. He belonged to the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs. Dennis was a member of Labour's National Executive Committee, with brief breaks, for thirty years, and was the chairman of the Committee in 1988–89. He was one of the longest serving members of the House of Commons and the longest continuously-serving Labour MP.
“Most of the major leaps forward that have been made by the working class haven’t been made down in the Houses of Parliament. They’ve been made on the streets and the picket lines. The nonsense that the Tories talk about turning the clock back. It’s gone forward. It’ll move on. The advance of socialism can’t be stopped. It’s never been stopped by prison walls. It’s never been stopped by Labour Cabinets never mind about the Tories. The march will go on.”
Early Life
Dennis was born in Clay Cross, Derbyshire and is the third of nine children. His father Edward (Tony) Skinner was a coal miner who was sacked after the 1926 General Strike. His mother Lucy was a cleaner. In June 1942, at the age of 10, Skinner won a scholarship to attend Tupton Hall Grammar School after passing the eleven-plus examination a year early. In 1949, he went on to work as a coal miner at Parkhouse colliery, working there until its closure in 1962. He then worked at Glapwell colliery near Chesterfield.
"I never, ever romanticise life in the pit. It was a hard, dirty, noisy, tiring, dangerous job in a confined space, a very dark world with no toilets or running water to drink or wash with. There was no popping up for a breather, let alone lunch or a cup of tea and a fag. Pit ponies were widely used, with about 20 stabled underground at Parkhouse."
In 1956 Skinner entered the Sheffield Star Walk, an amateur walking race, and finished second.
On 12 March 1960 Dennis married Mary Parker. The couple have three children, all of whom attended his old school and graduated from the University of Manchester. He and his wife separated in 1989. His current partner is former researcher Lois Blasenheim.
In 1964, at the age of 32, he became the youngest-ever president of the Derbyshire region of the National Union of Mineworkers. After working for 20 years as a miner, he became a member of Derbyshire County Council and a Clay Cross councillor in the 1960s. In 1967, he attended Ruskin College, Oxford, after completing a course run by the National Union of Mineworkers at the University of Sheffield.
The Labour Party
Dennis joined the Labour Party in 1956. He was chosen as Parliamentary Prospective candidate for Bolsover on 5 June 1969. Dennis was elected as MP for the then safe Labour seat of Bolsover at the 1970 general election. He retained his place in the “Palace of varieties” as he called Parliament until 2019.
Dennis became well known for his ascerbic rhetoric and was nicknamed the "Beast of Bolsover". Dennis recalls that he earned the nickname for his behaviour in a tribute debate in the Commons following the death of former Conservative Prime Minister Anthony Eden in 1977: "They were making speeches about the wonder of Anthony Eden, so I got up and talked about miners and people seriously injured and dead in the pits and the £200 given to the widow. There was booing and then all the Tories left and the papers had a go, some serious ones". (Dennis is in good company for this comment as you can read a similar story about Keir Hardie at https://www.madsmeds.org/keir-hardie )
In the Commons, Dennis asked Mrs Thatcher: "Is the Prime Minister aware that in 1979 the cost to the taxpayer of running Downing Street was £1.25 million? Will she also confirm that 10 years later that cost had soared by more than 400% in those ten years, which is a bigger percentage than any local authority in Britain? And that’s not including the gate!”
In 1981, at a Tribune meeting, Dennis gave Neil Kinnock advice about about standing for what’s right without fear. Unfortunately, Kinnock subsequently declined to accept it.
https://www.facebook.com/SKWAWKBOX/videos/381697882837779
During his tenure in the Commons, Dennis would usually sit on the first seat of the front bench below the gangway in the Commons. This is known as the 'Awkward Squad Bench' because it is where rebel Labour Party MPs have traditionally sat. He wore a tweed jacket (whilst most other MPs wear suits) and a signature red tie. In 2016, he stated that he had never sent an email and did not have a Twitter account.
Dennis was a strong supporter of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and their leader Arthur Scargill in the 1984-1985 miners’ strike. Dennis refused to accept a parliamentary salary in excess of miners' wages, and during the miners' strike he donated his wages to the NUM.
Dennis voted for equalisation of the age of consent, civil partnerships, adoption rights for same-sex couples, to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and for same-sex couples to marry, and has a strongly pro-choice stance on abortion. On 20 January 1989, he talked out a move to reduce the number of weeks at which an abortion can be legally performed in Britain by moving the writ for the Richmond by-election. On 7 June 1985, he talked out a bill by Enoch Powell which would have banned stem cell research by moving the writ for the by-election in Brecon and Radnor. Dennis later described this as his proudest political moment.
In 2000, Dennis denounced former ally Ken Livingstone, then serving as a Labour MP. Livingstone had failed to win the party's nomination to be a candidate for Mayor of London. Livingstone had then decided to run as an independent candidate instead, urging his supporters to help Green Party candidates get elected. Skinner said that Livingstone had betrayed Labour Party activists in his Brent East constituency, whom he described as having fought for him "like tigers" when his majority had been small: "He tells them he's going to be the Labour candidate, then he lies to them. To me that's as low as you can get". He contrasted Livingstone with the official Labour candidate, Frank Dobson, saying that Dobson was "a bloke and a half... not a prima donna ... not someone with an ego as big as a house". Dennis said Livingstone would "hit the headlines, but you'll never be able to trust him because he's broken his pledge and his loyalty to his party. The personality cult of the ego does not work down a coal mine and it does not work in the Labour Party". Ken Livingstone went on to win the Mayor of London election.
Despite his left-wing views, Dennis for a long time had a positive relationship with Prime Minister Tony Blair, stemming from advice that Dennis gave Blair regarding public speaking. As late as February 2018, he described the Blair and Brown ministries as a "golden period" for the NHS. However, Dennis strongly criticised Blair in May 2019. This was after Blair had advised pro-remain Labour supporters (who may have felt that the party's line on Brexit was too ambiguous) to vote for explicitly pro-remain parties in the 2019 European Parliament election. In the Morning Star, Dennis described Blair as a "destructive force" who was "try(ing) to destroy the Labour Party so people keep talking about his reign" and stating that he "went into Iraq and destroyed himself. He helped David Cameron and Theresa May into power. You're talking about a man who made a mess of it.”
In 2003, Dennis was among the quarter of Labour MPs who voted against the Iraq War. Dennis later rebelled against the party line when he voted against government policy to allow terror suspects to be detained without trial for up to 90 days. In 2007, Skinner and 88 other Labour MPs voted against the Labour government's policy of renewing the Trident Nuclear Missile System.
Dennis supported David Milliband in the 2010 Labour leadership election, which was won by his brother Ed Miliband. In March 2011, he was one of 15 MPs who voted against British participation in NATO’s Libya intervention.
Dennis was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the 2015 Labour leadership election. Shortly after Corbyn was elected as leader, Skinner was elected to Labour’s National Executive Committee on which he remained until October 2016. Dennis supported Jeremy Corbyn, alongside the majority of Labour MPs, in voting against the extension of RAF airstrikes against ISIS in Syria in December 2015. Skinner voted for Britain to leave the European Union in June 2016 and favours outright abolition of the House of Lords.
Following the retirement of Peter Tapsell in 2015, Dennis was one of the four longest-serving MPs in the Commons. However, he did not become Father of the House. This was because two of the other MPs, who were also first elected in 1970, had been sworn in earlier on the same day and consecutively they both held that position: Gerald Kaufman (2010-2017) and Kenneth Clarke (2017-2019). Dennis, the oldest sitting MP since 2017, stated that in any case he would not accept the honorific title. In 2019, with Clarke's impending retirement, the issue of Dennis becoming Father of the House resurfaced. However, it was rendered moot when Dennis lost his seat in the 2019 general election.
Suspensions
Dennis was suspended from Parliament on at least ten occasions, usually for unparliamentary language when attacking opponents. Notable infractions included:
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Twice in 1984, once for calling David Owen a "pompous sod" (and only agreeing to withdraw "pompous") and the second time for stating Margaret Thatcher would "bribe judges".
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In 1992, referring to the Minister of Agriculture, John Gummer as "a little squirt of a Minister" and "a slimy wart on Margaret Thatcher's nose”.
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In 1995, accusing the Major government of a "crooked deal" to sell off Britain's coal mines.
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In 2005, when referring to the economic record of the Conservatives in the 1980s, making the remark, "The only thing that was growing then were the lines of coke in front of Boy George and the rest of the Tories". This was a reference to allegations (originally published in the Sunday Mirror) of cocaine use by the newly-appointed Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne.
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In 2006, accusing Deputy Speaker Alan Haselhurst of leniency towards remarks made by opposition frontbencher and future Prime Minister Theresa May "because she's a Tory".
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In 2016, for referring to Prime Minister David Cameron as "Dodgy Dave" in relation to Cameron’s tax affairs.
You can see some of these at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLxWrp-rEeg
(Dennis’ suggestions on jobs for the royal family could be updated by having Prince Phillip become a driving instructor and Prince Andrew give interview tips).
Queen’s Speech quips
Dennis is well known for his republican sentiments and regularly heckled during the annual Queen’s Speech ceremony. He did this upon the arrival of Black Rod (the symbol of royal authority in the House of Lords) to summon MPs to hear the Queen's speech in the Lords' chamber. The best known, according to the New Statesman and other sources, are listed as follows:
Clips of these can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raCVVZpH694
Nature of the Beast documentary
A documentary about Dennis called Nature of the Beast was completed in 2017. This was sanctioned by Dennis and made by production company Shut Out The Light. The documentary traces Dennis’ rise to political icon status and covers his working-class upbringing, his family influences and his hobbies away from "The Palace of Varieties". Dennis’ four surviving brothers and several of his Bolsover constituents were interviewed for the documentary.
Personal Life
Dennis’ mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease prior to her death in the 1980s. Dennis sang to his late mother when she was diagnosed with the disease and was inspired by her ability to recall old songs. Since 2008 he has visited care homes in Derbyshire to sing to elderly patients with dementia.
Dennis is a supporter of Derby County Football Club and the Derbyshire County Cricket Club.
Post Parliament
In 2020, Dennis endorsed Richard Burgon for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
On 6 May 2020, he was named honorary president of the Socialist Campaign Group.
In September 2020, Robb Johnson released a song about Dennis, Tony Skinner's Lad, which topped the Amazon download chart.
Hear it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DGiZm8uuAI
Solidarity
Brian Madican
October 2020
