After Dennis Skinner successfully won the SNP turf war over his favoured seat in the Commons, the Labour backbencher has been relatively quiet of late. So Mr S was pleased to see him back on fighting form this lunchtime during Business Questions.
In what could only be described as an ambitious move, the Beast of Bolsover decided to take on Anna Soubry over George Osborne’s pet project, the Northern Powerhouse. After Soubry talked of the great work the Tories have carried out in the North, Skinner went on to claim that it was actually he who was behind the Northern Powerhouse:
‘I’ve listened carefully for the last half an hour to find out exactly what the Tory government is trying to do about places in the East Midlands like Bolsover which is very close to Lincolnshire because in the period when the Labour government was in power. Both myself and Gordon Brown — the Chancellor of the Exchequer — were the Northern Powerhouse.’
Skinner went on to boast about what he had done for the North – winning ’40 million quid’ and some further funds to improve the land, including an interchange off the M1.
‘We were actually fixing the roof while the sun was shining, we don’t want none of this claptrap about this Tory Northern Powerhouse.
With Soubry quick to reply that his real record was Labour ‘bringing this nation to the verge of bankruptcy’, Mr S suspects that even Skinner can’t win a fight by boasting about spending millions under Gordon Brown.
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