Dennis Skinner, the veteran Labour MP, says he failed to deliver his traditional state opening of parliament quip because he was too busy trying to keep SNP MPs from sitting in his seat to think of anything funny.
After Black Rod, currently Lieutenant General David Leakey, had the Commons door slammed in his face before being allowed entry as is custom, MPs waited for what they thought was to come next.
Yet the Beast Of Bolsover, whose annual caustic one-liner is almost as much part of the pomp and ritual as the Queen’s procession to parliament, remained silent.
“I’ve got bigger fish to fry than uttering something,” he told the Mirror. “I’ve been fighting some other battles, haven’t I? I was fighting the Scot Nats single-handed for a while.”
The Bolsover MP added that he had “a big battle” this morning to sit in his favoured seat in the corner front row of the green benches, which the SNP are trying to prise from him.
The new third-largest party in parliament, which took 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats at the election, seems to have made ousting Skinner from his “rebel’s bench” seat in Commons one of their early priorities.
“Why should they be on that bench?” the former miner said, who has gone to extensive efforts to fight for his seat. “You can’t win unless you’re there at some unearthly hour in the morning,” Skinner added.
“If I’d not been a coal miner in the past, getting up very early, I wouldn’t have been able to have done what I’ve been doing.”
“I’m up at the crack of dawn,” he said.
Skinner, battle-wearied and too preoccupied to heckle, later told the Telegraph: “It is not about me. That bench when I came into the House of Commons in 1970 was inhabited by what they called the awkward squad and by and large it’s had that reputation ever since.”
Although Skinner has not made a joke every year since he entered parliament, he has done so on the majority of occasions. He said he had not stopped doing the quip altogether, and that he still had four more years left in parliament.
Last year, he had shouted “Coalition’s last stand” as MPs were summoned to hear the Queen’s speech in the House of Lords.
He won widespread laughs from fellow MPs in 2013 when he shouted “Royal Mail for sale. Queen’s head privatised”, in reference to the government’s planned Royal Mail privatisation.
Yet in 2012 he angered Tory MPs by drawing attention to the country’s economic difficulties, saying: “Jubilee year, double dip recession, what a start.”
The best Beast Of Bolsover quips
1988 – “Ay up, Here comes Puss In Boots!” he called out to Black Rod Sir John Gingell.
1992 – “Tell her to pay her tax!” he heckled in reference to calls for the Queen to pay income tax.
1993 – “Back to basics with Black Rod” Skinner said in reference to the Back to Basics campaign of John Major’s government.
1997 – “Do you want to borrow a Queen’s speech?” he joked to Black Rod.
2001 – “You’re nowt but a midget!” he said to Black Rod Michael Willcocks, to much mirth in the chamber.
2006 – “Have you got Helen Mirren on standby?” Skinner said in reference to the portrayal by Helen Mirren of Elizabeth II in the award-winning film The Queen.
2009 – “Royal expenses are on the way” he said, bringing up the parliamentary expenses scandal.
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