BY JOHN ISMAEL

 

My Dear Dennis,

For many years now I have been singing your praises. As a Tory, this has not been easy for me. I mentioned your exemplary attendance record in Parliament. Your having actually worked in a proper job before entering parliament. I have referenced your sterling efforts locally for your constituents – those many Bolsoverians you have helped in person. I have admired your firm and principled stance on a plethora of issues, most notably on Europe and the UK taking back control from the EU. Where were all the bleeding hearts in Labour when the EU’s open borders policy meant the disgraceful exploitation of thousands of unskilled workers from poorer EU countries? Your attacks on the ill-conceived poll tax, on George Osborne (just look at the disgrace he has sunk to!) and ghastly Anna Soubry were so warranted.

Other Tories failed to listen to me. They said you dressed and looked like a coach driver. That you were a vulgar, silly little man – a lightweight Arthur Scargill. That you fully merited your various expulsions from the house and were unnecessarily unkind to poor Black Rod.

I admit that I stood alone and forsaken defending an unreformed statist, unionist, socialist who has repeatedly called for the privatisation of rail, gas, electricity, water, the banks, the pharmaceutical industry, the abolition of the monarchy, abolition of the Lords, abolition of titles, and massive increases in tax for those earning more than £10k. They refused to listen to me when I told them you were a wonder to behold. For the many not the few.

Oh, how long I have waited for you to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of Labour, Dennis. I knew you were far too savvy than to go down with those lightweights on that sinking ship that the red rose has become.

Then this week, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, you did it. You proved me right after all those years of abuse from my fellow blues. You stuck Corbyn’s three-lined whip where the sun doesn’t shine. A wondrous day dawned.

Never did I think I would hear Daily Mail readers hailing you as Skinner the Messiah. But it happened, Dennis! You made my heart skip a beat as it paroxysmed in joyous rapture. You supported the EU withdrawal bill and were immediately branded a ‘scab’ by Labourites for voting with Tory MPs to implement the result of the referendum.

I knew you had it in you, Dennis. Then to follow up your Tory-supporting vote with that masterful sideswipe at your old pal Jeremy was sheer bliss for me: ‘I have never ever changed my mind, unlike many people in the Labour Party who moved side to side.’

At 85 you have shown that, like a Chateau Lafite 1787, true value only demonstrates itself with old age, Dennis. If there remain any vestiges of self-doubt, I refer you to the likes of Aaron Bastani – the Momentum bank-breaker who today personifies your once proud party  – who wrote on Wednesday, “Every Labour MP who voted with the Tories tonight should find another job. This isn’t taking back control, it’s giving it up.” You must shed a tear for how Labour has become a mere refuge for trolls.

Dennis, I have believed in you for so long. And now, perhaps more than ever, I still have faith in you.

Although your Commons seat is only several feet from the other side, I thought I should write to you to encourage you on the final stage in your commendable metamorphosis. Even though you have more room to stretch your legs and scatter your papers your side of the house now that the Buckie-drunk-by-noon Scots rabble are less numerous, surely you know as a man of principle that there is only one thing left for you to do?

Jump ship, Dennis.

To become my true hero.

To make things easier, I’ll send you £25 in the post. All you need to do to start the ball rolling as you snaffle that golden political legacy is to sign this form here.

Yours ever,

John x