Councillor Farnell Relaxed About Danczuk

Rochdale Council Leader Praises Geoffrey Dickens a Damaged ex-Tory MP

'MR. Danczuk has a lot on his plate at the moment!' blandly declared Richard Farnell, the Labour leader of the Council at last night's full meeting of Rochdale Council at Rochdale Town Hall.  He  was answering a question from Councillor Andy Kelly, Liberal Democrat, about his support for the member of Parliament.  Dismissing Councillor Kelly's question as 'irrelevant', Mr. Farnell continued: 

'I support any member of Parliament who works hard for this Borough.  I remember working with Geoffery Dickens (a former local Tory MP for Littleborough & Saddleworth)...  Simon Danczuk trounced Councillor Kelly...' at the General Election.

Councillor Andy Kelly had asked that as Simon Danczuk had been suspended from the Labour Party 'can you (Richard Farnell) support his actions?' 

Mr Farnell is now clearly relaxed about the furore surrounding Simon Danczuk MP, but that was not the case in  June 2014 when he told the journalist Jennifer Williams of the Manchester Evening News that:  'Rochdale is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons and I will not allow a tiny minority of people to drag us down'.
 
Alas, unfortunately for Richard Farnell, the Geoffrey Dickens comparison is not the best choice either, for when Dickens was a Tory MP for Littleborough and Saddleworth in 1990s, he had been a cheer-leader for one of the most expensive incidents in our recent local history: that is the discredited Satanic Abuse scandal in nearby Middleton.  Richard Farnell was himself leader of Rochdale Council from 1986 to May 1992 and was in office when social workers and police from Rochdale raided five homes of working people, and took 21 children into care on the now discredited ground that they had been subjected to ritual Satanic abuse.  The plight of the 'stolen children' was given extensive coverage by reporters of the Mail on Sunday, and after six months of investigation it was found that the false Satanic abuse scare had destroyed five families.

 The Satanic abuse scandal in the Rochdale area of Langley council estate, Middleton, involved social workers who falsely claimed that working class parent had indulged in Satanic rituals with their own children and placed the children in the care of the local authority.  In two cases this involved sending two lads to Knowl View, an institution which is now itself under investigation.  Ultimately, when the false claims of Satanic abuse on Langley and elsewhere came to light in the 2006 , the Rochdale Local authority had to pay heavy price.

 Geoffrey Dickens, when a local Tory MP, must take some responsibility for what happened on the Langley Estate with regard to the Satanic abuse scandal in the Rochdale area and the cost to the council when the injustice to the parents became apparent.  Richard Farnell may have a point in linking Simon Danczuk Labour MP to Geoffrey Dickens Tory MP, in that they both represent rather bizarre colourful creatures in politics:  both have proved expensive to the public purse in that there was a high local cost to the rate payers in the panicky politics Geoffrey Dickens' promoted locally in Rochdale and there is an ongoing cost to everyone in the way Simon Danczuk conducts himself both with his lavish expenses and with his demands for seemingly endless public enquires into historic sexual abuse.
 

 Both Danczuk and Dickens have been bizarre and rather larger than life politicians, who went in for extravagant claims. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/real_story/4595158.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/real_story/4602302.stm

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/jan/12/childrensservices.uknews

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/satanic-abuse-the-truth-at-last-1018638