Beast of Bolsover bows out after 49 years as former heartlands desert Labour

Dennis Skinner, former miner turned Member of Parliament, held the north east Derbyshire seat for the last 49 years, from 1970 until 2019, one of the few constants in a period of tumultuous change for British politics.

Over that time he won 13 elections, racked up hundreds of thousands of votes and became totemic in the Labour movement in the way that few other people ever have.

Skinner’s astonishing longevity is matched only by his visceral hatred of the establishment, with his Queen’s Speech quips and parliamentary suspensions the stuff of legend.

His annual haranguing of Black Rod during the State Opening of Parliament entertained his fellow Labour MPs, but it was his unparliamentary language that regularly got him in trouble.

He was suspended from the House on at least 10 occasions, including once in 1984 after calling SDP leader David Owen a ‘pompous sod’, and then - under pressure from the Speaker - only agreeing to retract the word ‘pompous’.

And he was also suspended in 1992 after famously referring to the Minister of Agriculture John Gummer as ‘a little squirt of a Minister’ and ‘a slimy wart on Margaret Thatcher's nose’.

I had my own run-ins with the Beast on two separate occasions, both at the 2017 General Election.

He first refused to write us a column explaining why people should vote for him, arguing it would take employment away from a journalist, taking a principled stance to the point of sheer bloody-mindedness.

Then, at the count itself, despite his victory he took the opportunity to unload on me for the Derbyshire Times’ ‘betrayal’ in backing his opponent for the Labour nomination in 1969, a full nine years before I was born.

As well as assailing me and the DT, he also held court about British politics, drawing parallels between the General Elections of February 1974 and June 2017.

Almost uniquely he had been an MP during both, but, as it turned out, 2017 was to be his last hurrah.

The seeds were there two years ago that Bolsover’s previously unquestioned loyalty to their working-class hero was dwindling.

This year, there simply wasn’t enough left to get him over the line a fourteenth time.

But as well the end of a legendary political career, Skinner’s loss feels emblematic of the demise of a kind of Labour England.

Small working-class former industrial towns, once tribally Labour, no longer feel enough connection with the party set up to represent them to elect its candidates.

The same story was seen across the north, with constituencies like Don Valley in South Yorkshire, Ashfield in Nottinghamshire and Burnley in Lancashire all turning blue.

Bolsover has changed out of all recognition in the almost half-century Dennis has been the local MP.

The coalfields have gone as have the traditional Labour voters who would once turn out in droves for Skinner and people like him.

Labour desperately needs to find a way of reconnecting with those people if it is ever to win power again.