Simon Danczuk's Troubles

by Brian Bamford

NORTHERN Voices' has seen correspondence which shows that the Metropolitan police were alerted on the 25th, January last year, to possible fraud with regard to Mr. Simon Danczuk's expenses claims as an MP for Rochdale.   Mr Danczuk was originally suspended from the Labour Party a year ago for sending 'lurid' texts to a 17 year old girl asking for a job?  Since then he has become entangled in the other allegations of expenses fraud.
The complaint at that time came from the office of Rochdale Councillor Andy Kelly, who now claims 'the ongoing investigation from the Met Police into Danczuk's expenses make being welcomed into the Labour Party "inconceivable".'  Mr Danczuk had had to pay back £11,583 in expenses for 'claiming expenses he wasn't entitled to' according to the Independent Parliamentary Standard's Authority (Ipsa).  Another member of the public had also complained.
Ipsa’s compliance officer, Peter Davis, has said in his report into the complaint:
'The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the MP obtained an increase to his accommodation expenditure budget by claiming dependent uplifts for his two oldest children for a period of over three years, when, at no point were either of the children routinely resident.'  
The compliance officer must also conclude that this was done knowing that there was no reasonable prospect of the children staying at the accommodation.
Because these very serious allegations are still hanging over Mr. Danczuk, Councillor Andy Kelly, leader of the Rochdale Liberal Democrats, has said in a statement that Simon Danczuk's recent claim that he is about to be reinstated into the Labour Party 'is yet another example of the cavalier attitude of our town's MP.'
Rochdale's Councillor Kelly quite reasonably added:
'We could have a situation were he is welcomed back into the Labour Party on the Monday, charged with misuse of public funds on the Tuesday and kicked out again on the Wednesday.'
A Crown Court judge in a recent local case said that the defendant lacked insight, well there could be no better example of a lack of insight than that presented by Simon Danczuk's bluster to gain re- admittance to the Labour Party.