Hypocrisy in Rochdale!

BOTH the main parties on Rochdale Council have expressed their anger that the two councillors, Farooq Ahmed and his wife Shefali, who left the Labour Party last weekend have now set up their own party; the Rochdale First Party.  At the same time Simon Danczuk the Rochdale MP has had to defend his misspent youth as a mature student at Lancaster University for having used Class A drugs:  in his Talking Politics column in the tomorrow's Rochdale Observer Mr Danczuk said:
'It's well known by now that my first wife spoke to the tabloids to say I'd taken recreational drugs in my past...  This was all many years ago and has no bearing on my duties as Member of Parliament now'

Curiously Farooq Ahmed was planning to resign from the Labour Party back in January 2012, when a Labour MP accused him of smoking cannabis and he had been suspended from the Labour Party after a film appeared to show him smoking something dodgy at Manchester Airport.  And guess who the Labour MP was that had it in for Councillor Ahmed at that time, and went so far as to report him?

None other than sober Simon Danczuk, the clean-living MP for Rochdale would you believe it? 

At that time Mr. Danczuk told the Rochdale Observer that 'I supplied a letter to the council leader on December 18, about a variety of issues relating to Coun. Ahmed's behaviour.'  And Danczuk added:
'When serious concerns about a councillor's conduct are brought to my attention, no matter what party they belong to, it is my duty to ensure that action is taken.  I am disappointed the council leader (Colin Lambert) has dithered and has been indecisive but I am pleased the group nationally has acted.'

The difference between Danczuk and Ahmed was that Councillor Ahmed has always denied that he had smoked cannabis on that occasion, and he was later reinstated by the Labour Party.  Meanwhile, Simon's ex-wife has given information to The Sun of their drug fuelled nights on the town.  Now Mr. Danczuk appears to excuse his drug taking by saying:  'I've not spent my whole life trying to be a politician... I'm an ordinary person who believes in the power of politics.'

And yet, knowing of his own history as a consumer of 'recreational drugs' Simon Danczuk had no hesitation in reporting on a Labour colleague to the party hierarchy.  Could it have had anything to do with the fact that Councillor Farooq Ahmed was then a senior member of the cabinet in Rochdale which was then led by Colin Lambert, whose administration Mr. Danczuk now documents as having been guilty of 'a frustrating sense of drift'.