Dennis Skinner

Dennis Edward Skinner (born 11 February 1932) is a British former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolsover for 49 years, from 1970 to 2019. A member of the Labour Party, he is known for his left-wing views and republican sentiments. Before entering Parliament, he worked for more than 20 years as a coal miner.

Nicknamed the "Beast of Bolsover", Skinner belonged to the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs. He was a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, with brief breaks, for 30 years, and was the committee's chairman from 1988 to 1989. He was one of the longest serving members of the House of Commons and the longest continuously serving Labour MP. A lifelong Eurosceptic, Skinner voted for the UK to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Skinner lost his seat to Mark Fletcher of the Conservative Party, and was succeeded as the Labour candidate for Bolsover by Natalie Fleet.

During his parliamentary career, Skinner was suspended from Parliament on at least ten occasions, usually for unparliamentary language when attacking opponents. Perhaps the most notable example of this occurred in 2016, when he referred to David Cameron as 'Dodgy Dave' during a parliamentary debate about the Panama Papers. He was also known for regularly heckling upon the arrival of Black Rod in the House of Commons chamber during the State Opening of Parliament. During most of his tenure in the Commons (in the years where the Labour Party were in opposition), Skinner would usually sit on the first seat of the front bench below the gangway in the Commons in a tweed jacket and signature red tie. During the New Labour government from 1997 to 2010, Skinner sat in the equivalent spot on the government benches.

Early life and career
Born in Clay Cross, Derbyshire, Skinner is the third of nine children. His father Edward Skinner was a coal miner who was sacked after the 1926 general strike, and 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 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 Bolsover. In 1956 Skinner entered the Sheffield Star Walk, an amateur walking race, and finished second.

In 1966, Skinner 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. As chairman of the Clay Cross Council, Skinner was noted for his decision not to wear the traditional council dress and gold chain, stating, 'My conscience would not permit me to wear it, because I believe... all the pomp and ceremony attached to local government [and] Parliament is outdated and a waste of time'. In 1967, he attended Ruskin College, after completing a course run by the National Union of Mineworkers at the University of Sheffield. Skinner resigned from the colliery and the Derbyshire Miners' Union shortly after his election to parliament in June 1970.

Parliamentary career (1970–2019)
In 1956, Skinner joined the Labour Party. He was chosen as Parliamentary Prospective candidate for Bolsover on 5 June 1969. Skinner was elected as MP for the then safe Labour seat of Bolsover at the 1970 general election, succeeding Harold Neal. He retained the seat for 49 years (receiving his highest vote share in 1970, whilst achieving his highest majority at the 1997 general election), until he lost it at the 2019 general election to Mark Fletcher of the Conservative Party.

Due to his aggressive rhetoric, Skinner became known as the "Beast of Bolsover". Skinner recalls that he earned the nickname for his behaviour in a tribute debate in the Commons following the death of former Conservative Prime Minister Sir 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".

During most of his tenure in the Commons (in the years where the Labour Party were in opposition), Skinner would usually sit on the first seat of the front bench below the gangway in the Commons (known as the 'Awkward Squad Bench' because it is where rebel Labour Party MPs have traditionally sat) in a tweed jacket (whilst most other MPs wear suits) and signature red tie. During the New Labour government from 1997 to 2010, Skinner sat in the equivalent spot on the government benches.

In 1979, Skinner played a role in publicly exposing Anthony Blunt as a spy for the Soviet Union. On 15 November 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher revealed Blunt's wartime role in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in reply to questions put to her by Ted Leadbitter, the MP for Hartlepool, and Skinner. Thatcher made a full statement to the Commons on the matter the following week:"Mr. Leadbitter and Mr. Skinner: asked the Prime Minister if she will make a statement on recent evidence concerning the actions of an individual, whose name has been supplied to her, in relation to the security of the United Kingdom.Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: The name which the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) has given me is that of Sir Anthony Blunt."

On 7 June 1985, Skinner 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;  Skinner later described this as his proudest political moment. 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.

In 2003, Skinner was among the quarter of Labour MPs who voted against the Iraq War; he 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.

In January 2012, Skinner was referred to as "a dinosaur" in a controversial jibe by David Cameron, who said "I often say to my children 'No need to go to the Natural History Museum to see a dinosaur, come to the House of Commons at about half past twelve'". Cameron received criticism for the remark, and was accused of ageism. Labour MPs complained at the time that Cameron's words amounted to "a gratuitous and entirely offensive insult to a greatly respected honourable Member, made entirely because of his age." House Speaker John Bercow replied at the time: "I'm always in favour of humour but just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, humour is a matter of subjective judgment. Sometimes people are funny. Sometimes they think they are funny. Sometimes they think they are funny deliberately when they are not. Sometimes they don't realise they are funny when they are." In July 2015, Cameron referenced the dinosaur remark in another jibe in which he said "It's always very good to see the Labour Party in full voice, cheering on 'Jurassic Park'. I would stick to the movie".

In May 2014, Skinner was the principal guest speaker at the Kent Miners Rally at the Aylesham & District Social Club to commemorate 30 years since the Miners Strike 1984/1985.

Following the retirement of Peter Tapsell in 2015, Skinner was one of the four longest-serving MPs, but did not become Father of the House, as two other MPs, who were also first elected in 1970, had been sworn in earlier on the same day and consecutively both held that position: Gerald Kaufman (2015–2017) and Kenneth Clarke (2017–2019). Skinner, 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 Skinner becoming Father of the House resurfaced but was rendered moot, when Skinner lost his seat at the 2019 general election to Mark Fletcher of the Conservative Party.

In 2017, upon Kaufman's death, 85-year old Skinner became the oldest member of the House of Commons. When Skinner was first elected Bolsover was one of the safest Labour seats in the country, when the town still had a large mining community, but over the following half century with socioeconomic changes in the constituency Skinner's vote share dropped from 77% in 1970, still holding a high vote share of 65% in 2005, to only 36% in 2019, with the result that he lost the seat to the Conservatives by a margin of 11%. He was succeeded as the Labour candidate for Bolsover by Natalie Fleet, who became MP for the seat in the 2024 general election.

Views
Skinner was a strong supporter of the National Union of Mineworkers and their leader Arthur Scargill in the 1984–85 miners' strike. Skinner refused to accept a parliamentary salary in excess of miners' wages, and during the miners' strike he donated his wages to the NUM.

Skinner 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.

Following the sudden death of John Smith in 1994, Skinner was among the MPs to pay tribute to him, saying that despite coming from a different wing of the Labour Party, he and Smith "never had words in anger", and said that he would have become Prime Minister and praised Smith for "dragging the Labour Party from the depths of despair to the pinnacles of power." Skinner concluded his tribute by saying that the best tribute to Smith would be to pass the Disabled Person's Act in his memory.

In 2000, Skinner 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, and 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". Skinner 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".

Conversely, despite his renowned left-wing views, Skinner for a long time had a positive relationship with Prime Minister Tony Blair, a leading figure on the right-wing of the party, stemming from advice that Skinner gave Blair regarding public speaking. As recently as 2018, he described the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown ministries as a "golden period" for the NHS. However, Skinner strongly criticised Blair in 2019, after the former Prime Minister had advised pro-Remain Labour supporters who 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, Skinner 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."

Skinner supported David Miliband 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.

Skinner was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015. Shortly after Corbyn was elected as leader, Skinner was elected to Labour's National Executive Committee, on which he remained until October 2016. Skinner supported Corbyn, alongside the majority of Labour MPs, in voting against the extension of RAF airstrikes against ISIS in Syria in December 2015.

Skinner has stated that he voted for the UK to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum.

Skinner favours outright abolition of the House of Lords.

Suspensions
Skinner was suspended from Parliament on at least 10 occasions, usually for unparliamentary language when attacking opponents. Notable infractions included:
 * In 1980, he attempted to raise points of order during question time, against parliamentary practice, which led to a prolonged altercation with Speaker of the House of Commons George Thomas.
 * In 1981, accusing Speaker Thomas (a former Labour MP) of attending functions to raise funds for the governing Conservative Party.
 * Twice in 1984, once for accusing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of "bribing judges" in relation to a court case the government had won relating to banning GCHQ employees from trade union membership; and the second time for calling SDP leader David Owen a "pompous sod" (and only agreeing to withdraw "pompous").
 * In 1987, for accusing former cabinet minister Norman Tebbit of 'lining his pockets' and being 'dishonourable' as a result of his directorship and large shareholdings of British Telecom, a company he had privatised as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, which Labour MPs perceived as a conflict of interest.
 * 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".
 * In 1995, accusing the Major government of a "crooked deal" to sell off Britain's coal mines.
 * 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", a reference to allegations originally published in the Sunday Mirror of cocaine use by the newly appointed Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne (though, in the Commons, Skinner referred to the News of the World).
 * 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".
 * In 2016, for referring to Prime Minister David Cameron as "Dodgy Dave" (related to Skinner's contention of Cameron's dishonesty) in a parliamentary debate about the Panama Papers. Skinner was asked by House Speaker John Bercow to withdraw the word "dodgy". When Skinner refused, he was ordered to leave parliament for the remainder of that day's session. In July 2016, Skinner once again referred to Cameron as 'Dodgy Dave' in parliament, however this time he was not reprimanded, or asked to leave. "Dodgy Dave" has gained usage in the media, and on social media, when Cameron is being referred to disparagingly. Skinner's remarks resurfaced online after Cameron was appointed foreign secretary by Rishi Sunak in November 2023.

Queen's Speech quips
Known for his republican sentiments, Skinner 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:

After parliament (2019–present)
During the 2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election which was won by Angela Rayner, Skinner endorsed Richard Burgon for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, saying "I'm backing Richard to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Richard is a socialist who never gives in and never gives up. He gives me hope for the future of our Party. I urge CLPs & unions to nominate Richard and members to vote for him."

On 6 May 2020, Skinner was named honorary president of the Socialist Campaign Group.

Nature of the Beast documentary
A documentary about Skinner sanctioned by him, Nature of the Beast, was completed in 2017 by production company Shut Out The Light. The documentary traces Skinner's rise to political icon status and covers his working-class upbringing, his family influences and his hobbies away from "The Palace of Varieties". Skinner's four surviving brothers and several of his Bolsover constituents are interviewed in the documentary.

Stage play
Derby Theatre commissioned Kevin Fegan to write a play inspired by Skinner, titled The Palace of Varieties – life and times of Dennis Skinner, which was performed at the theatre in early 2022.

Tony Skinner's Lad
In September 2020, Robb Johnson's song about Skinner, Tony Skinner's Lad, topped the Amazon download chart.

Personal life
In 1960, Skinner married Mary Parker, from whom he separated in 1989. He has three children and four grandchildren. Since the 1990s, his partner has been former researcher Lois Blasenheim.



In 2014, Skinner released his autobiography Sailing Close to the Wind: Reminiscences. In an interview he gave later in the year, Skinner stated that he had never sent an email and did not have a Twitter account, and when asked what he considered Cameron's biggest achievement to be, Skinner said "I can't trust him as far as I can throw him."

In 1999, Skinner was diagnosed with advanced bladder cancer and subsequently had surgery to remove a malignant tumour. In 2003, he underwent a double heart bypass operation. He underwent hip surgery in 2019. He was too ill to campaign in the 2019 general election after he was hospitalised with a dangerous infection following the hip operation. He was not present at the count when he lost his seat.

Skinner's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease prior to her death in the 1980s. Skinner 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.

Skinner is a supporter of Derby County Football Club and Derbyshire County Cricket Club.