I missed a letter in the Guardian last week from the redoubtable John Prescott, setting the record straight on two important slights on the working class hero status of Comrade Skinner. Polly Toynbee, now regarded by some as a radical, had been horribly off-message in her reluctance to regret the ejection by Labour MPs of Dennis Skinner from its national executive:

Age bestows benevolence, but some with 1980s memories don’t forgive him, Tony Benn and others for rendering Labour unelectable in the “no enemies on the left” days, blocking attempts to stop Militant’s invasion. Roy Hattersley calls him “an entirely destructive force“. But others say a mellowed Skinner often helped Blair and Brown out of difficulties. That is ancient history. Now, for those without rancorous memories, the man is a totem remnant of imaginary days when politics were better, MPs more authentic.

What’s more she implied that neither Skinner nor Prescott had been to university. Not one to see one of the few remaining working class MPs in parliament dissed and unfairly blamed, Comrade Prescott leapt to Skinner’s (and his own) defence: Continue reading →