Sailing Close to the Wind: Reminiscences

by Dennis Skinner, Kevin Maguire

Overview

Dennis Skinner, the famed Beast of Bolsover, is adored by legions of supporters and respected as well as feared by admiring enemies. Fiery and forthright, with a prodigious recall, Skinner is one of the best-known politicians in Britain. He remains as passionate and committed to the causes he champions as on the first day he entered the House of Commons back in 1970.

In an age of growing cynicism about politicians, the witty and astute Skinner is renowned as a brightly burning beacon of principle. He has watched Prime Ministers come and go - Heath, Wilson, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown - and yet remains uncorrupted by patronage and compromise. Cameron discovered Skinner's popularity when a public backlash forced the current PM to apologise in Parliament for calling Skinner a dinosaur who should be in a museum.

Skinner at eighty has a unique take on post-war Britain. A combatant in the great social, industrial and political upheavals of the last half century, he's resisted telling his extraordinary story. Until now.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784291235
Publisher:	Hodder
Publication date:	05/14/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.75(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Dennis Skinner is the son of a miner sacked after the 1926 General Strike. Skinner, to the distress of his mother, and despite a Grammar School education, followed his dad down the pit. He was a Clay Cross and Derbyshire councillor before winning Bolsover for Labour in 1970, a seat he's held ever since. A former chairman of Labour, current member of the party's ruling National Executive Committee, Skinner's Parliamentary heckles and interventions are legendary. He was expelled so often from the Commons that suspension became an occupational hazard.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

1 Good working-class mining stock 1

2 Mrs Langley's books 21

3 Never show you're scared 33

4 More to lose than their chains 49

5 'Why tha' waddling tha' bloody arse?' 63

6 To the Palace of Varieties 75

7 Socialist till I die 101

8 Bend it like Beckham 121

9 Never be dull 153

10 I wah in Derbyshire 171

11 The front bench below the gangway 179

12 The agony and the ecstasy 197

13 The jazz singer 219

14 The Queen's Speech 223

15 The Iron Lady 237

16 On the right as well as the left 253

17 The odd couple 259

18 Posh boys and a dinosaur 273

19 Fresh air, roses and revolution 285

20 What's left? 295

Acknowledgements 315

Index 319

Editorial Reviews

Skinner's life . . . cried out to be recorded. In an era when politics has become increasingly bland and middle-class, there is marked shortage of working-class heroes—Observer

Witty, tender and packed with anecdotes—Big Issue in the North

From the Publisher