Dennis Skinner

Dennis Skinner
Name	Dennis Edward Skinner (born 11 February, 1932)
Nicknames	The Beast of Bolsover (everyone), SKINNAD (fandom)
Politics
Party	Labour
Constituency	Bolsover (1970 - Present)
Positions	Labour NEC, sometime in the 80s
Likes	Socialism, miners, nationalised industry
Dislikes	Tories, wars, the monarchy, lazy politicians
Friends	Tony Benn
Enemies	George Osborne, the Tory Party, the SNP, the Labour frontbench
Relationships
Partners	Mary Parker (1960-1989) Lois Blasenheim (199? - ?)
Children	Dawn (1960), Dennis (1962), Mandy (1966)
Personal Attributes
Nationality	English
Religion	None (atheist)
Sexuality	Straight
Height	?
Eye Colour	Hazel
Handedness	Right
Accent	Derbyshire

Dennis Skinner is a vocal Labour backbencher known for his hard left politics, his fearlessly blustery and sometimes abusive debating style, his distinctive tweed jacket with a crimson shirt and tie, and his impeccable Commons attendance record. Opinion is divided over whether Dennis is awesome or obnoxious, but everyone agrees that he is fucking hard core.

Life and Career

Parliamentary Career

Queen's Speech Heckle

The newest convention of Britain's unwritten constitutional settlement is for Dennis to heckle Black Rod with some sarcastic comment during the State Opening of Parliament. Some complain that his quips are not very funny, which is true but missing the point.

NEC Committee

In 2014 the Parliamentary Labour Party accidentally voted Dennis off the National Executive Committee. Dennis had occupied one of the MPs' seats for years. He'd been voted off and on during the left-right struggles of the 80s, but he'd been re-elected to the committee during the Blair era as a counterbalance to the New Labour political machine and by 2014 he was a venerable party institution/crazy old leftie duffer whom no one wanted to remove.

Unfortunately, former Shadow Health Secretary John Healey decided to stand for the NEC at the last minute, turning what might have been a simple affirmative reelection of Dennis and his fellow NEC member Steve Rotheram into a contest. Healey was widely liked, and Ed Miliband's office was angry with Rotheram because the Liverpool MP had taken the leader to task for his questionable decision to get himself photographed holding up The Sun. In a display of the political acumen that would soon cost them the 2015 election, Miliband staffers went around telling everyone to vote against Rotheram. This pissed off the party because the vote was supposed to be unwhipped. Everyone assumed that someone else would vote for Dennis and voted for Steve to spite the leadership, lending the popular Healey their second vote to make sure he got on the committee.

The end result was that Dennis came third and lost his spot, much to the chagrin of Miliband's office who were now stuck with Rotheram and blamed for allowing the much-loved Dennis to be ousted. Tom Watson came up with an asinine plan to create a new NEC seat just so Dennis could be appointed to it, exactly the sort of autocratic stitch-up Dennis would hate, but nothing came of it.

The War for Skinner's Seat

I was there before them and I will be there when they are gone.~ Dennis Skinner

After the 2015 general election, the SNP became the third Opposition Party and decided that they absolutely could not manage to oppose the Government unless they had control of Dennis Skinner's favourite seat, a prime heckling location on the Awkward Squad Bench which he had occupied in opposition for 45 years. To this end, on the first day of the new parliamentary session SNP whip Pete Wishart organised shifts of new SNP MPs to sit in the seat for four hours so that their leader Angus Robertson could claim it. But the more experienced Awkward Squad were too cunning for them. Labour MP Kevan Jones nipped in while the Chamber was evacuated for the daily police sniffer-dog search and grabbed the spot, giving it up to Dennis when MPs filed back in.

On subsequent days seats could be reserved by showing up for Prayers in the morning, and all Dennis had to do to secure his seat was make sure he woke up early enough to be the first in line. Showing up to work at 8:00 AM is nothing to an old ex-miner, and Dennis has won his place every day so far, although he was too distracted by the ongoing struggle to think up a quip for the 2015 Queen's Speech. Within a week the SNP had more or less conceded defeat in their undignified battle with an 83-year-old man.

Dennis wasn't too fussed, as he'd already been through it all thirty years earlier. In 1981 SNP leader David Owen tried to take his seat, but being David Owen he couldn't be bothered to turn up to Prayers in person and sent a staff member to reserve it in his place. Furious Points of Order were raised, and the Speaker agreed that this was against the rules. Then Owen pushed past Clare Short to try to grab it and nearly knocked her down. That was the final straw, and within a few days Dennis had his spot back.

Full List of Appointments
• NEC (at various times)

Portrayal

In Fanon

Meme

Dennis is generally portrayed as an irascible old coot who shouts abuse at Tories, champagne socialists, and other enemies of the revolution.

Shipping

Thus far, Dennis has only been paired with Edward Leigh. This may be for the best.

Forumverse

SKINNAD can only type in caps because his keyboard is broken. This does not stop him from brutally mocking the rest of the forum netizens, especially when the Tories drop by. He is generally considered to be one of the highlights of forumverse, and his popularity has led to his screen name being adopted as a nickname for the real Dennis within the fandom.

Crossovers

There is clear evidence that Dennis exists in the The Thick of It universe:

Dennis hanging out with aspiring parliamentary candidate Glenn Cullen.