Of all the MPs to pick a fight with, Dennis Skinner is not high on Mr S’s list. Still, that hasn’t stopped the new SNP intake from spending their first week in Parliament battling the 83-year-old Labour MP.
The Scottish Nationalists have been trying to take over the bench where Labour’s awkward squad likes to sit. This bench is where Skinner has sat for the past 40 years and he has no plans to sit anywhere else any time soon. Things have got so bad between the parties over the turf war that they held a crisis talk yesterday:
During the meeting MailOnlineclaim that Labour accused the SNP of ‘bullying’ Skinner. While they failed to agree on everything, it’s believed that the SNP have conceded that Skinner can keep his seat so long as they have the rest of the front bench for SNP. ‘We have to have the front bench. However we are trying to be reasonable. We will be respectful to certain individuals,’ Pete Wishart told the publication.
A victory for Skinner then, if not the Labour party as a whole. Not that anyone ever really doubted that the Beast of Bolsover would triumph:
Middle-class shoplifting is pushing up high street prices, according to Dame Diana Johnson, the policing and crime minister. Can she be right? If my own middle-class acquaintances are anything to go on, the answer is clear: yes. Many of those pilfering from our shops look just like you and me OK, we know shop theft
Steerpike
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