The Beast of Bolsover takes centre stage at conference

Sadiq Khan had to fight for his speaking slot at this year’s Labour’s conference. But while it was apparently difficult to squeeze in a politician with one of the largest personal mandates in Europe, making room for the Beast of Bolsover was not so tricky, it seems. Dennis Skinner was on familiar territory in his speech: bashing the Tories and talking of abolishing zero-hour contracts. He also returned to another favourite subject: the Queen.

‘It really gets to me when they talk about the Queen’s head being privatised,’ he joked. Skinner also had a revelation for the audience on how Labour would fund its plans if it ever made it into government. There has been much talk of the Tories’ magic money tree funding their own pact with the DUP. But Labour won’t need a tree. Instead, they have a simpler solution: they’ll borrow the money, according to Skinner. Mr S thinks Corbynomics might still need some work…