Who does Tony Lloyd MP think he is kidding?

Is ROCHDALE Becoming Queen Of The Rotten Boroughs?

EDITORIAL NOTE:

PRIVATE EYE may yet award Rochdale the prize of the 2020 Queen of the ROTTEN BOROUGHS if things carry on as they are at Rochdale Council. At least two of the town's wards have given cause for serious concern in recent years owing to the curious customs of some of the residents, and both are within the boundaries of what is Tony Lloyd's constituency of Rochdale.

Readers may be well aware of the distasteful historic nature of the politics of Rochdale stemming from Cyril Smith's terms in office first as a Rochdale Labour councillor, and later as the town's Liberal MP from 1972 to 1992; then there is Simon Danczuk's time as Rochdale MP from 2010 until 2017 when he ended up in fifth place standing as an independent candidate following his suspension from the Labour Party for what he himself called "inappropriate and stupid" behaviour in 2015, when he exchanged perverse messages with a young 17-year-old girl; thus it was that Tony Lloyd became the new Rochdale MP on the back of Simon Danczuk's disgrace. In both the earlier cases of Smith and Danczuk it was suggested that the authorities turned a blind-eye to what was taking place in Rochdale's political arena.

Now the concerns raised by Carl Faulkner in his letter below suggest that Rochdale's current MP, Tony Lloyd, may be oblivious to some strange goings on inside the Rochdale Labour Party: for example in 2018, Rochdalian Faisal Rana received a police caution after registering himself at two different addresses and managing to vote twice, he later became a local Rochdale councillor. Most decent people would regard this as disgraceful conduct, but not it seems some in the Rochdale Labour Party. Now, it seems, Councillor Rana is promoting himself as a possible heir to Tony Lloyd and a future MP for the town.

What is perhaps even more worrying is that some weeks ago Carl sent this letter to the Rochdale Observer and it has yet to be published. The Rochdale Observer, it will be recalled, was one of the newspapers that failed to report the story when Rochdale's Alternative Paper first tried to expose Cyril Smith.

The leopard, it seems, cannot change its spots!

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Dear Sir/Madam,

WHO does Tony Lloyd MP think he is kidding? He has recently raised concerns about the fairness of elections in a faraway country called Belarus. This is not a one-off. He has a long standing record of ‘concern’ about fraud in elections. Back in 2004 he stood up in Parliament and said that electoral fraudsters should know they would be sent to prison. His own website boasts of his multi-country involvement in helping to ensure fair and fraud-free elections.

So, it would be easy to assume that this man would speak out about electoral fraud wherever it occurs. Especially if it happened here in Rochdale. Anybody believing that would be wrong.

This is because in 2018, electoral fraud came to Rochdale and made the national news. It was the year a councillor in his own Rochdale Labour Party, was outed as an electoral fraudster. A man who had dishonestly registered himself at two different addresses, applied for two separate postal votes and then voted twice in the Rochdale’s local elections. Despite being caught out, the hard-faced electoral fraud councillor refused to resign. This person was not unknown to Tony Lloyd. It was someone who had been closely involved in Tony Lloyd’s 2017 General Election campaign.

At the time of the fraud, decent folk quickly and publicly condemned the councillor and called for him to resign. From Tony Lloyd there was only silence. But his hypocrisy did not end there. I wrote to him, asking that as my MP, would he make representations to the Attorney General and request a change in the law that would automatically prevent future electoral fraudsters from serving as councillors.

His initial response was to try and fob me off. He then attempted to ignore me. Eventually, he simply said it was something that I could do myself. Not quite what you would expect from an MP who likes to portrays himself as the protector and promoter of fraud-free elections.

However, his hypocrisy knew no bounds and he still wasn’t finished. In 2019 a Tony Lloyd General Election leaflet dropped through my letter box. There, staring out from the leaflet was the gurning fizog of his friend, the electoral fraudster Labour councillor.

What a shameless hypocrite of an MP we really have. Rochdale deserves better.

Regards,

Carl Faulkner

ROCHDALE

NB All the above can be verified if requested.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/councillor-who-voted-twice-rochdale-15028865