Dennis Skinner

Skinner worked for twenty years as a miner at Glapwell Colliery in Derbyshire and was a local union leader before he was elected for Bolsover in 1970. He held the seat for 49 years, refused to pair or join foreign trips, and was famous for his heckles at the State Opening. The pit shaped his whole parliamentary identity: an unbending loyalty to the coalfield communities through the 1984 to 1985 strike and the closures that followed. He never sought ministerial office.