Dennis Skinner: Nature of the Beast

Dir: Daniel Draper

2017

****

Skip Kite’s brilliant 2014 documentary Tony Benn: Will and Testament sang praise to one of England’s greatest ever politicians and a personal hero of mine. It was released some months after Benn died but followed the last two years of his life. The title suggested that he knew he was reaching the end of his life and his involvement with the film made it so much more fulfilling. Then, in 2017, Daniel Draper decided it was time Benn’s colleague and friend Dennis Skinner had his praises sung. However, Skinner doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, continuing his role as MP well into his 80s. Skinner thankfully accepted Draper’s offer and here we have a pleasant and unfussy portrait of one of the few people left in the Houses of Parliament with an ounce of integrity in them. I know a lot about Skinner’s political life but I knew nothing of his private one and Draper’s Dennis Skinner: Nature of the Beast dips in and out of it rather well. Between footage of Skinner’s passionate speeches of which he is famous for, we are also treated to a few anecdotes, a trip to various parks and fields and a few old renditions sung by the man himself. I knew he was a miner, a democratic socialist and trade unionist but I didn’t know he could sing. I was unaware of his love of nature and his obsession with London's parks (including Richmond Park where I was married) where he walks every day between parliamentary sessions. The film uses a combination of archival and recent footage, along with interviews with Skinner, his family and his friends. It explores every aspect of Skinner's life. It follows Skinner from early years to modern day, his entry into politics, his high and low points, his rebellions against the party, while naturally highlighting the wit and passion that has earned him the nickname "The Beast of Bolsover". Born in 1932, Skinner became the Member of Parliament for Bolsover in 1970 becoming the longest continuously serving Labour MP on 16 December 2017 – shortly after the film was released. The film follows a lot of Skinner’s early work, his commitment to the miners and his local constituents, which is only right and probably what he would want. It touches on one of his greatest achievements and, in his own words, his proudest political moment, when on 7 June 1985, he talked out a bill by Enoch Powell which would have banned stem cell research by moving a writ for a by-election in Brecon and Radnor. I’m dead against filibustering in the houses of parliament but without Skinner doing so many lives would have been lost. The documentary couldn’t not touch on some of the mischief Skinner had got up to over his career or the amount of times he has been kicked out of parliamentary sessions but I would have hoped for a little more. Indeed, a lot of the film had Skinner walking around the countryside when really it could have been singing his praise just a little more. I wanted to know his feelings on some of the other MPs of the house, both in his party and the opposition. They missed out on many of his best quipps too. Known for his republican sentiments, Skinner has regularly heckled during the annual Queen's Speech ceremony. He does 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. It all started in 1980 when Skinner and other Labour MPs blocked the entrance of Black Rod who was attempting to summon the Commons for the prorogation of Parliament, the cause being the Conservative government announcing increased rents for council houses, which the Labour Party wanted more information on. A few years later, Skinner realised because his seat was close to where Black Rod would stand, the microphone nearest him would have been switched on. He realised that he had around five seconds to say something so that absolutely everyone would hear. After a few years of ribbing Black Rod himself ("Ey up, here comes Puss In Boots!") he became a little more daring. In 1992 Skinner shouted "Tell her to pay her tax!" directly at the Queen. One of my favorites was when, in the middle of the ceremony, Big Ben rang and he quipped "It tolls for thee, Maggie.” and indeed, Margaret Thatcher was soon voted out by her party. I don’t agree with everything Skinner has done but he himself states in the film that no MP is perfect and no MP ever could be, you just have to keep going as best you can. That’s a political truth and a half. He has however, always been on the right side of history. Skinner has voted for equalisation of the age of consent, civil partnerships, adoption rights for same-sex couples and 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. 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 ninety days. In 2007, Skinner and 88 other Labour MPs voted against the Labour government's policy of renewing the Trident Nuclear Missile System. In March 2011, he was one of 15 MPs who voted against British participation in NATO's Libya intervention. He later supported Corbyn, alongside the majority of Labour MPs, in voting against the extension of RAF airstrikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria on Wednesday 2 December 2015. He’s been kicked out a few times but always for good causes. In 1984 he was removed for calling David Owen a "pompous sod", 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 2016, for referring to Prime Minister David Cameron as "Dodgy Dave" in relation to Cameron's tax affairs and 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 News of the World of cocaine use by the Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne. It’s a great tribute to a great man – it has a lot of things missing from it that followers of his will be surprised by but it is how he would want it I’m sure, the modest man that he is. One of the few Englishmen I can say I’m truly proud of.