In the Battle for Scotland, the Labour MPs herded north of the border in rail carriages to save 41 seats in the great referendum smacked of Lenin in his sealed train returning to Russia for a final push. My snout whispered that “volunteers” had been instructed to talk quietly to avoid being overheard by the likes of me and warned not to drink alcohol excessively. Not that every Labour MP had been invited. Frank Field sniffed that he’d been left behind because he backs independence for Scotland and the whips didn’t want him hitching a free ride to campaign for a Yes vote. My snout grumbled that a show of hands would have found a majority of Labour MPs in favour of a one-way ticket to Glasgow for Frankie McField.
I hate to spoil a good joke but @BolsoverBeast on Twitter is not Dennis Skinner. Half of the Parliamentary Labour Party believes the account – with 25,700 followers the last time I looked – is the Beast of Bolsover’s. In fact, it’s a clever spoof of the Labour veteran. Skinner confirms it’s not him in his memoirs, Sailing Close to the Wind, and explains that the Labour frontbencher Catherine McKinnell took some convincing that he wasn’t the tweeter. If not Skinner, who is @BolsoverBeast?
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