The Beast of Bolsover

THE LABOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT for Bolsover (Derbyshire), Dennis Skinner, can be a real amusing albeit nasty piece of work. As an avowed trade unionist and a traditional socialist, he remains rabidly class-based in his politics. His passion, his syntax, his body language, his comportment and dress, embody the style of the classic working class. In a movement now mostly led by middle-class professionals, he sits as the Labour front bench's token proletarian and Ruskin.

His irreverence for monarchy is legendary, having on a number of occasions hurled sarcastic abuse at Her Majesty and her Black Rod from the safety and impunity of his Commons seat. "Pay your taxes", Queen (1992); "Tell her to read the Guardian!" (2000); "Bar the doors" to the Black Rod, Speaker (2003); "Tell the House of Lords to go to hell." (2004); "Has she brought Camilla with her?" (2005); "Is Helen Mirren on standby?" (2006); "Who killed the Harriers?" (2007). As Matthew Parris of The Times puts it, he has "an instinctive ability to interrupt, to wisecrack on the instant and to sustain working class harangues against the establishment."

He gained his sobriquet "the Beast of Bolsover" for his anti-monarchist buffoonery and for falling foul of the procedures of Parliament, many of which are in his view archaic and contemptible. He has been an MP since 1970, and in all that time never once witnessed the State Opening of Parliament or heard the Queen's Speech. The whole idea of the Crown and the Lords offends him deeply, so much so that he can't bear the thought of assembling in the upper chamber with his parliamentary colleagues to open the session. To the amusement of his colleagues, he prefers to pout in the Commons all by his lonesome, while the Queen conducts the ceremonial business of the nation in the Lords. Skipping the day is obviously not an option for this MP; it goes against his proud "working-class" sensibilities and assiduous attendance record.

In addition to never attending the Queen's Address with his parliamentary colleagues for the past 37 years, he has never once been a member of an All-Party Parliamentary Group or travelled with other parliamentarians on political or non-partisan business; apparently never ate alongside parliamentary colleagues in the Commons dining room or drank in the Commons bar. Avoidant personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder or whatever disorder, social ineptitude of any form is a strange malfunction for a professional politician. A misdiagnosed theory perhaps, but a rebel MP on the "Awkward Squad Bench" who is occasionally an entertaining figure of Parliament, he most certainly is. Unfortunately for theatre-goers, he now assumes the role of a 21st century endangered species, along with the rapidly and thankfully receding notion that there still exists such a thing as a "working-class".