Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Left-wing Labour MP and former miner famed for sharp interjections and mastery of parliamentary procedure; known as the Beast of Bolsover.
On the island
Eight records
If Those Lips Could Only Speak (If Those Eyes Could Only See)
He stood in a beautiful mansion, surrounded by riches and poor…
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:14Mr Skinner, why are you called the Beast of Bolsover? Do you know its origins?
Yes, as a matter of fact, one of the MPs in the House on an occasion when they were talking about free trips and I said, 'You stand near opening your mouth. All the trips that you've been on out to the Middle East have been paid for' and he responded and shouted to the Speaker, 'Can't you control this bloody beast of Bolsover?'
Presenter asks
2:46Were you born with a thick skin? Did you not mind criticism then?
Oh no, very sensitive. I remember when I used to go to school they used to shout '[Skinner] a bobber rabbit' and run after me with a penknife and I used to think these big lads at about seven and eight and I was there about four I used to think they were going to cut me up. I used to run over the hills and eventually it became a very good cross country run and I think that's where it started.
Presenter asks
6:58You were saying earlier that you had politics for breakfast, dinner and tea in your household. What sort of politics? How did you go on in your house?
My father, because he was kind of a shop steward at the pit, a miner's delegate, he used to talk about what was happening during the day, and of course you pick things up. I mean here was the household which at various times had got six, seven and eight kids to feed and it was a hard existence … But you heard about the politics really at the raw end. And you always knew that you couldn't have certain things that other people could have.
The book
Benny Green
Let's face the music. On on every page there are about twenty song titles.
The luxury
I'd take a bike. … There are now bikes, mountain type bikes, that you could use on a desert island. And so I'd get around the desert island on this on this bike.
Presenter asks
24:37Would you accept that those of you on the hard left have decreased Labour's chances of beating Toryism in the last decade rather than increased them?
No, I think it was largely because of the fact that during nineteen seventy eight seventy nine in particular … the IMF came in. That was a major disaster for the Labour Party … because they couldn't control the finances and the economy themselves … And so I don't accept that we lost because of the left's activities at all.
Presenter asks
26:36So what would you say to those people who say, Mr Skinner, that your brand of socialism is outmoded today?
Uh no, it's not outmoded because what I'm saying is the essence of socialism is still there. And you can't just sort of imagine that you can build this wonderful nirvana in which you don't have to struggle. We're engaged in a never ending battle. And where there's exploitation, under whatever government, somebody has to be there to fight it.
“I mean, you've got to bear in mind that all the family have been involved in politics of one kind or another, trade union activity, and as my father once said when he was asked, he said, We used to have politics for breakfast, dinner and tea.”
“Oh, no, because I had a second chance in life. When I got involved in the trade union … and then later on to Ruskin College … I got in with a second chance.”
“Yes, because I felt at the beginning, along with the full-time officials, that it would be wrong of me, since I was going to be one of the key participants, going round the country, raising money, keeping the strike as solid as we possibly could. I couldn't really sit on platforms calling upon people to fight and to struggle and to eat grass if necessary if I wasn't making a sacrifice myself. So I said at the outset that that's what I'd do.”
“My father says to me, he says, It's just like going to the pit, lad. He says, examine the working place, he says, and keep your eye on them that's down there.”
“I shan't be doddering about when I'm an old man, you can rest assured about that, because I couldn't keep up the day-to-day activity, to be honest, and I believe that you can't talk about retirement at sixty five or thereafter for everybody else and not engaging it yourself.”