The SNP’s first big Westminster battle: turfing Dennis Skinner out of his seat
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Version 0 of 1. Name: Dennis Skinner’s seat. Age: At least 30. Appearance: The object of the SNP’s affections. Look, the election was ages ago. Let’s stop fixating on seats. You misunderstand. This has nothing to do with constituencies. Skinner is obsessed with his seat. His actual seat. The one he sits on. The one in the House of Commons? Exactly that. Ever since he became an MP 45 years ago, Dennis Skinner has placed himself on “rebels’ bench” – the closest spot for a backbencher to directly harangue the prime minister. Specifically, the corner seat has been his since the early 1980s. Related: Labour’s Dennis Skinner at 83: ‘Father of the House? You must be joking’ Well, thanks for this informative new chapter of Where MPs Like to Sit Sometimes. No, listen, it gets more exciting than that. Someone tried to oust him yesterday. Fine, go on. Every day at 8am, Skinner diligently reserves his seat in the traditional manner, with a prayer card. This rule doesn’t apply on the first day of a new parliament, so the SNP beat him to it. So the point of this story is that some people sat in someone else’s seat, in a big room full of other seats? No, it’s that they tried to sit in his seat, but he spotted a tiny crack of space between the MPs, and forced his way in, and he still got to sit there after all. So the point is that a man who usually sits in a seat got to sit in the same seat he always sits in? No. Listen, it’s much bigger than that. This is a sign that the SNP is playing hardball with Westminster, that the SNP is a force of violent change. Really? What violent change is that? Well, it almost got Dennis Skinner to sit somewhere else. But it didn’t. No, but it might one day. That should be the SNP’s motto: Almost But Not Quite Getting an Old Man to Move Three Feet Away from Where He Usually Sits. Oh, they did so much more than that. Once they realised Skinner wasn’t going down without a fight, the SNP took the row behind Labour’s front bench, defying a long-standing Commons convention. Oh for God’s sake. What happened next? Did one of them pull Jeremy Corbyn’s trousers down? Steal David Winnick’s Kia-Ora and squirt him in the face with it? Now, now, don’t be juvenile. Although there are unconfirmed reports that Ronnie Cowan threw Simon Danczuk’s trainers on top of a bus, and Simon Danczuk started crying for his mummy. Do say: “This is an unacceptable way to treat an 83-year-old man.” Don’t say: “I bet Skinner’s a nightmare at DFS.” |