Today’s Queen’s speech has brought sharply into focus the loss of a prominent institution in last week’s election – Dennis Skinner. Whilst doing broadly nothing as a constituency MP, the Beast of Bolsover came to play a critical role in the State Opening of Parliament; that of heckling Black Rod…
His defeat means the mantle must be picked up by a new member. Yesterday David Davis suggested Harriet Harman should, given she’d sat in Skinner’s traditional place on the opposition benches. Harman passed up on the opportunity…
When asked by Guido, the new Tory MP for Bolsover didn’t seem too keen on the idea that the role should be picked up by him; joining a few of the new intake Tory MPs who have a poor heckling track record. They had planned on chanting ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ when he first entered the Chamber for the Speaker’s election on Monday, only to get cold feet at the last minute. They’ve got five years to find a backbone and entertain us…
He had two whole years to come up with it…
For 47 years he’s voted against the European Union and its predecessors. Matt Zarb-Cousin says he should face deselection for that…
H/t: Video from Westmonster
At PMQs today Dennis Skinner told the House that INEOS’s fracking activities have caused problems with the Bolsover water supply. Residents have had discoloured water for 10 days, and Skinner was not missing the opportunity to blame INEOS and fracking. Just one problem. Severn Trent Water said five days ago that the issues were caused by a broken water pipe, not fracking activities. INEOS have said in a statement in response to Skinner’s PMQ that they were working 3 kilometres away from where the leak happened and that “there is absolutely no evidence that the leak is in anyway linked to our work”. This was all public well before Skinner asked his question. Will he apologise?
After he voted with the Tories on the Brexit bill last night, Dennis Skinner is facing calls for deselection from the Corbynista hordes. Some are even calling him a “scab“. Novara Media’s Aaron Bastani and The Canary’s Steve Topple have gone oddly quiet after their somewhat premature tweets…
Not Skinner’s worst joke:
“Get your skates on, first race is half past two.”
The Queen is rushing off to Ascot once her duties in parliament are over…
