Les May
DURING the 2010
General Election campaign Gordon Brown came to Rochdale to support Labour
hopeful Simon Danczuk. He ended up
making some unwelcome headlines for himself as a result of the 'bigotgate'
incident which seemed to do Labour no harm whatsoever as Danczuk won the seat.Mr D's comment about this was, ‘He hasn’t apologised to me at any stage. You’d have thought he would. I’d have said sorry if I were him.’ Keep that last sentence in mind!
After the publication of 'his' book, (it seems to have mostly been written by his aide Matt Baker), in April 2014, politics in Rochdale became dominated by one thing: demands by the Danczuk camp followers that the Lib-Dems should 'apologise' for Cyril Smith. There's that word again.
This was of course a trap. Had they done so it would have been a tacit admission that the claims in the book about Smith's activities after the closure of Cambridge House in the mid 1960s were true and it would have neatly removed the problem of the authors being asked to prove their claims. If you read the book you soon realise that they amount to little more than gossip, innuendo and assertions by Danczuk and Baker.
What is beyond doubt, because the allegations were published in Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) in May 1979 when Smith was very much alive, is that at Cambridge House he carried out a number of indecent assaults whilst he was still a member of the Labour Party. The late Mr Roger Chadwick has placed on record that he gave information about these to the then Labour Agent Josh Hughes. There were of course no demands from Danczuk that his party 'apologise'.
In April of this year Simon was calling for Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders to 'apologise', (there's that word again!), over previous decisions by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute Lord Janner. Decisions made some ten years ago when she was not in the post.
Two weeks ago Danczuk was on the Daily Politics programme insisting that Ed Milliband has a lot to 'apologise' for, (it's getting monotonous Simon), and would 'probably go down as one of the worst Labour party leaders in history'.
But what happens when the boot is on the other foot and it's Simon Danczuk who is told to apologise?
On pages 221 and 222 of his book is a typical Danczuk story about Smith. In recounting this story he forgot the collateral damage being caused to the reputation of the Northamptonshire Police.
'His car had been pulled over on the motorway and officers had found a box of child porn in his boot. The police were naturally disgusted and wanted to press charges. But then a phone call was made from London and he was released without charge.
'Senior officers had threatened the officers involved with dismissal if he was not released immediately. The mood was tense and sullen as officers stood back while Cyril breezily walked past them to freedom. All the staff who knew about it were threatened with the Official Secrets Act if they discussed the matter any further. Once again Cyril walked out of the police station knowing he was a protected man.'
A totally convincing story, but totally untrue. How do we know? Because detectives have interviewed Danczuk, two former chief constables, about 60 police staff, a journalist who has written extensively about Smith, and several members of the public. No witness has been found who saw Smith in custody or was involved in his arrest, no reports of the alleged incident have been uncovered and no witnesses have been found from Special Branch. A manual trawl of its archives was undertaken by Special Branch and the Crown Prosecution Service searched its archives for relevant information. Both found nothing.
So far as I know this is the only one of Danczuk's stories that has been subject to scrutiny. I leave it to your imagination to figure out how much it has cost to find out the truth about it just because he and Baker could not be bothered to check it out before committing it to print.
Speaking on the BBC regional programme 'Look East' the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Northamptonshire Adam Simmonds said the force had been 'maligned' by Mr Danczuk adding, ‘The force should expect an apology. Northamptonshire Police are not guilty of covering up a crime and indeed letting someone go on to perpetrate more.’So now it's Danczuk's turn to apologise. Does he? No, he demands something which is logically impossible, that the police 'disprove' his claim.
But the killer line is what PCC Adam Simmonds said next, ‘Everything in that book's got to be evidence-led and -based, otherwise you are alerting people to the wrong information.’ There's a lot of 'wrong information' in Danczuk's book because overwhelmingly it is not based on evidence. The false story about improper behaviour by Northamptonshire police with regard to Cyril Smith is just one of the ways in which he tries to conjure up a conspiracy to protect Smith.
Danczuk is good at demanding other people 'apologise' but when he gets it very wrong he refuses to do it himself. The man is a Humbug.
(Do watch this video and see Tom Baldwin make Danczuk
squirm. His ever reddening face is a picture to behold.)
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