Professional Politicians & Political Gravy Train

by Les May

A week or so ago a someone who has no liking for politicians rang me to say that he had come across a ‘tweet’ saying the Liz McInnes would no be standing as a candidate for the Heywood and Middleton seat at the general election.   The reason she gave was that she is not a ‘professional politician’.  But as my caller pointed out we need more MPs like that.  That is more MPs who are not ‘professional’ politicians.

You have only to look at McInnes’s Wikipedia page to see that she became an MP after nearly 35 years working in a quite different sphere of life.   And why she chose to stand for Labour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_McInnes

If you want to see the consummate ‘professional’ politician in action look no further than the MP in the neighbouring constituency of Rochdale.  Ever since Danczuk was elected in 2010 he has ‘milked’ his position for all it’s worth.  It’s not just the pay-offs from the Daily Mail for his contribution to articles attacking Corbyn or the cash he has received for revelations about his private life which have appeared in The Sun which are part of this process.   His book about Cyril Smith is so full of fanciful assertions masquerading as ‘facts’, so repetitious, so full of ‘flowery flannel’, that it is unlikely that it would have found a publisher had he not been an MP.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/our-long-running-crique-of-smile-for.html

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/nv-review-of-smile-for-camera.html 

Whilst his predecessor Cyril Smith was an apologist for the asbestos industry he does not seem to have taken ‘freebies’ such as Danczuk has taken from another killer industry, tobacco.   No one has ever suggested that Liz McInnes has ever behaved like that.

But finally Simon’s antics have caught up with him and he will not be a Labour candidate for Rochdale in the upcoming election. That doesn’t mean the ‘pay days’ are at an end of course but no one is going to be dishing out heaps of cash for his views on the Labour leadership. But it’s worth pointing out that contrary to the stories coming from some sources he has not been ‘banned’ from standing as a Labour candidate.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-latest-simon-danczuk-banned-labour-party-rochdale-karen-danczuk-a7712241.html

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/01/labour-bans-rochdale-mp-simon-danczuk-from-standing-in-election

http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/exclusive-labour-expels-danczuk.html

What the NEC actually said is ‘After considering the case of Simon Danczuk in detail and speaking to him in an interview, the Labour party’s NEC endorsement panel today unanimously recommended that he should not be endorsed as a Labour candidate.’  This would seem to neatly get round the question of a ‘legal challenge’.  Natural justice would seem to have been served.  And if he does decide to stand as a candidate in opposition to Labour he will have sacked himself neatly resolving the question about whether his suspension from Labour should be lifted.

So it seems that there is only one bit of unfinished business yet to be resolved.  That’s the investigation by the Metropolitan Police into the little matter of the £11,000 Simon had to repay because he was not entitled to it.