Stuart Christie: an insider's study of an authentic classical anarchist by Brian Bamford - Part Two

ANARCHISM IS not a very well understood doctrine in British politics. I realised this when Tameside Trade Union Council first published a booklet commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War in 2006 with Durruti on the cover. The then delegates of the Greater Manchester County Association of Trade Union Council clearly didn't appreciate the publication at the time, but during the meeting a large party of French trade unionists from the CGT [communist] happened to be present and while many of the local English trade unionists held back the French delegation waded-in to buy up most of the commemorative booklets we had to hand, and even later following me to the toilets to get extra copies.

It struck us at the time how utterly frigid the English trade unionists were compared to their French 'communist' CGT comrades.

This thought occurs to me now as I now with sadness write my friend and comrade, Stuart Christie's obituary. I remember that sometime after Stuart wrote the first volume of his autobiography 'GRANNY MADE ME AN ANARCHIST', I wrote a critique of it entitled 'God Help the Anarchist movement that Needs Heroes'. This in turn led to a bitter altercation between me and Stuart on the website 'Libcom' in which I believe he labelled me 'an arsehole'. However, in 2006, it was a measure of Stuart's nobility that when I invited him to write an introduction to Tameside TUC's Spanish commemorative booklet he had no hesitation in agreeing to do the job.

He probably did it because he knew me from when I first met him in Paris in August 1964, when he was about to go on to embrace the risky venture in his ill-fated journey to Madrid and ultimately to a Spanish jail for his part in a proposed attempt to assassinate General Franco. At that time we were all staying in a 'safe house' with Germinal Garcia at his apartment near Place de la République*. My wife Joan and I were returning from Spain, having first worked in Denia, Alicante throughout 1963, and later on in early 1964 moved on to La Linea on the border with Gibraltar where I worked for the MOD at the Gibraltar airport. While in Denia my eldest lad was born at the clinica there in September 1963. While in Spain and later Gib. we had taken photos of the conditions in the shanty towns in Barcelona and we sent back reports on working conditions over there for the FIJL publication Nueva Senda. At that time we were being debriefed, and thought Stuart may have been on a similar mission to us, but soon found out that they had other plans for him. At one stage he asked for our advice and was naturally interested in our own experiences.

Stuart was still in Carabanchel jail [Madrid] when my family again returned to Spain in early 1967 on our way to work in Gibraltar having had difficulties working as an electrician in Rochdale following my involvement supporting the national engineering apprentice strikes in November 1964 and February 1964. Having been blacklisted by the British MOD and throughout Gibraltar with private companies with contracts with the MOD and other contracts with the British authorities the only place on the Rock that I had a serious chance of work was with the Gibraltar City Council, supported by the Transport & General Worker's Union and Albert Risso who had close links with Sir Joshua Hassan the Chief Minister.

The anarchists on Gibraltar at that time were active within the Transport & General Workers Union and were basically anarcho-syndicalists. Stuart identified with the syndicalists, and had fallen under the influence of Bobby Lynn who he says 'had become the backbone of the Glasgow anarchist movement'. I'd stayed with Bobby Lynn in the Gorbals in 1961 and he gave me his copy of 'The Sexual Revolution' by Wilhelm Reich. Bobby was a member of the Syndicalist Worker's Federation when I stayed with him in 1961. As news leaked of Stuart's arrest Peter Turner [FREEDOM EDITOR] had contacted Bobby Lynn in Glasgow and up there they had assured him that Stuart was so dedicated to the peace movement and that it was not likely that he was guilty as claimed by the Spanish authorities. This may have influenced the report in the syndicalist Direct Action which took the line that he must be innocent, and Wynford Hicks on behalf of the anarchists argued on TV news that he was probably the victim of an 'agent-provocateur'. Another Freedom editor Vernon Richards argued more sensibly that it mattered little whether Stuart was innocent or guilty the anarchist position should be to support him.

For my part I knew what had taken place, but anticipating returning to work in Spain and expecting to continue to help the group of young Spanish exiles of the FIJL involved with the failed attempt, I decided to remain silent. Stuart himself had not been prudent before his departure for Spain and had actually participated in a BBC2 program entitled 'Let Me Speak' hosted by Malcolm Muggeridge. Muggeridge, who had been a friend of George Orwell, had often identified morally and intellectually with Tolstoy and anarchism.

In his autobiography 'MY GRANNY MADE ME AN ANARCHIST'[2004] Stuart documents the sequence of events in the summer of 1964: 'In mid-July Salvador and Bernado [Gurucharri] told me I should be ready to leave for Paris by the end of the month. Everything was now in hand for my trip to Spain. Shortly before I left... I was invited to appear on what later turned out to be, for me, an almost disastrous chat show called Let Me Speak, on ...BBC2. Having a small spectrum of anarchists, with me and another young lad called Vincent Johnson representing the "revolutionary anarchists" Muggeridge asked me if I was sincere in my revolutionary aims...would I, for instance, given the opportunity, assassinate Franco?" It was an unlucky shot in the dark, for that was pretty damn close to what I was hoping to do. What could I say but yes?.'

It is an extraordinary admission for a revolutionary anarchist to make! I doubt that the Spaniards I knew in Paris or in Spain in the 1960s would have made such a confession on the BBC or before going on a mission such as Stuart anticipated. It's almost as if he had a death wish or secretly wanted to get caught. When we knew him in Paris in August 1964 he was hopelessly naive and clearly knew little of the reality of everyday Spanish life or working conditions. He struggled to pronounce the Spanish word for 'workers'.

On page 107 of his autobiography he writes: 'I may not have been wise or competent in what I did or the way I went about it, but I did not have the benefit of hindsight'.

Never mind 'hindsight' given what he had done did he have the benefit of foresight or even a glimpse of common sense? I say this knowing, as Stuart did, that other people suffered as a consequence of what he did and the mistakes that he and his handlers made at the time. I also say this as a friend of Stuart who exchanged correspondence with him regularly over the last few years, and had documented and detailed our differences in my earlier pamphlet. One thing that troubles me is not that he wore a kilt, but that he sported a war resister badge of a broken rifle on his chest while walking around Paris in 1964 as he carried our one-year-old son Deon. He told us that he'd visited Paris the year before in the Spring; it was more 'romantic' than in August. Being romantic was probably what attracted most people to Stuart as it was part on his charm.

Yet, when we had visited Ken Hawkes, then secretary of the Syndicalist Workers Fed., and his wife before we went to Spain in February 1963, the worst winter since 1947, they treated us to a bottle of Champagne as we'd just got married and reminded us to remove our Ban the Bomb badges before we left their house on Parliament Hill for Spain. I wonder why none of us thought to urged Stuart Christie to take off his tell-tale War resister badge?

I suppose that in August 1964, we were all a bit intoxicated by the atmosphere of a time in which Franco had just celebrated 25-years of peace, and a pale-faced Salvador Gurucharri and others had just been released from jail. In Paris, at that time, we were all in high spirits as things seemed to be moving in the right direction.

While there Stuart met other major figures in the exiled Spanish anarchist movement, the organised FIJL [Fed. of young libertarians] around the Internal Defence (DI), and including militants of long standing like Octavio Alberola* and Luis Andres Edo.

In his autobiography he describes what he did as 'the act of an adolescent' and he quotes a verse from Longfellow:

'A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' [page 120]

On reflection he goes on to admit: 'Now it will seem like to many a foolish, naive, impulsive act...'

and 'I cannot claim, either, that it was entirely altruistic - my motives were certainly in part a desire for excitement and adventure.'

On reflection he goes on to admit: 'Now it will seem like to many a foolish, naive, impulsive act...'

Essentially he was doing what we had done a year earlier when we went to Spain to escape from what then seemed like dreary Manchester; he was he says not satisfied with what would now be called 'gesture politics' of petitions and protests, and sought to engage directly with a struggle in Spain. Foresight or prudence would make cowards of us all; it was not part of his engaging personality at that time. It set Stuart outside the smelly little left wing orthodoxies which he left behind. Yet it led him to get a 'GO TO JAIL' card to a Madrid prison cell, and was for him a life changing event.

Once in Paris Stuart had made contact with the action groups of the exiled Spanish anarchist movement, organised around Internal Defence (DI) and involving militants of long standing like Octavio Alberola and Luis Andres Edo. As such during his disastrous mission he was later arrested in Madrid and charged with the possession of explosives. These were intended for an attempt on Franco’s life and he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Thanks to a continuing international pressure he was freed after 3 years.

Why was General Franco and the Francoist regime so susceptible to international public opinion in the 1960s?

I think it was in his book 'The Face of Spain' [1950] that Gerald Brenan tried to explain the mellowing of the Franco regime. In that book he explained how the Falange and those who adhered to Franco began invest in real estate and escape the relative poverty of the 1940s and 1950s. We too quickly forget that it was not just the Spanish working-class that suffered after the Civil War, but the Spanish middle-classes experienced insecurity also. My boss Senor Such told me of how in the 1940s everyone in the fishing village where I lived and worked in 1963-4 had suffered depravation after the war and some had to eat cats. Later on it had become possible to make some progress and by the time we got there in the early 1960s things were looking up as the tourists began to arrive and with the development building work on the costas things were much more prosperous for many including the low-level Falangists. This allowed some softening of the regime which may some helped Stuart Christie escape with what turned out to be a relatively short sentence of 3-years in the end. Had he been arrested some ten years earlier for the same offence it may have been an altogether different story, but by the mid-1960s the supporters of the Franco regime felt much more secure than they had been during the Second World War or in its aftermath when to some extent Spain had been isolated internationally.

* FOOTNOTE: In the early hours of 11 May 2011, 86-year-old Germinal García, a militant of the Juventudes Libertarias (FIJL) and the Paris Local Federation of the CNT in the 1950s and 1960s, passed away (in Paris). At the end of the Spanish Civil War, 13-year old Germinal had been interned in Argeles-sur-Mer concentration camp where an unknown English woman, to whom he was ever grateful, cared for him. Stowing away on a Danish freighter, the Kitty Skov, from the port of Barcelona, he escaped to the United States, where he remained for a time in New York, passing himself off as a French citizen, returning later to France to became active in the anti-Francoist struggle. Shunning the limelight, but always in the background with his strong sense of solidarity, Germinal’s apartment in the Rue Lancry was a safe haven for comrades who had escaped from Franco’s Spain — and for guerrillas such as Quico Sabaté whenever he was in Paris (it was also used by Stuart Christie prior to his trip to Spain in 1964). For that and for his ongoing service to the libertarian movement, Germinal won the respect and friendship of all who knew him. With his passing, we have the satisfying memories and the privilege of having known the friendship of a good comrade. Germinal’s remains were cremated in Paris on 17 May 2011.

Octavio Alberola, May 12, 2011 SEE ALSO https://www.facebook.com/TheOrwellSociety The Orwell Society - Home | Facebook The Orwell Society. 1.4K likes. The Orwell Society aims to promote the understanding and appreciation of the life and work of George Orwell. Join here:... www.facebook.com

STUART CHRISTIE DIES! Intro. by Brian Bamford

PART ONE - THE AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION:

Stuart Christie: a Scottish anarchist writer and publisher. Who when aged 18, Christie was arrested in Madrid while carrying explosives to assassinate the Spanish caudillo, General Francisco Franco. He was later alleged to be a member of the Angry Brigade, but was acquitted of related charges.

Born: July 10, 1946, Partick, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Died: August 15, 2020

Movies: The Angry Brigade: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Britain’s First Urban Guerilla Group Organizations founded: Anarchist Black Cross Federation, Cienfuegos Press

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BEYOND an OBITUARY!:

STUART Christie was an anarchist who had quality and consistency as well as quantity and a prolific output. From the early 1960s when he first engaged with Bobby Lynn and the Glasgow anarchists to his death bed listening to 'Pennies from Heaven' Stuart sternly stuck to his beliefs dedicated to a classical version of anarchism.

My last contact with Stuart was an unusually brief e-mail from him last November in which he wrote: 'Bearing up, Brian. Hope you are too. Un abrazo!.'

However I must offer a health warning, as in the 56 years since we first became acquainted in Paris in 1964, our paths have been very different. His commitment was to internationalist view while mine since the 1960s when I lived and worked in Spain has been mostly more parochial. My engagement with the anarchist movement in Spain and later Gibraltar was very different from that of Stuart even though we were functioning in the same organisation: the FIJL (DI). My role was purely one of propaganda and intelligence, and at no time was I involved in the violent activist deeds which were designed to discourage tourism or strike at General Franco.

My task and that of my then wife, Joan, was the much more humdrum; in my case one of working on the tools as an electrician, and delivering Butane Gas to the villages on the Cabo San Antonio in Alicante. Much more boring than 'daring-do' and prison life, but a way of soaking-up Spanish culture and everyday life as it was lived by many young Spaniards at that time who migrated to the coast from places like Albacete and Andalucia: working a six day week and paid 750 pesetas. Meanwhile, our FIJL campaign against Spanish tourism clearly failed, yet fortunately less tragically than Stuart's failed mission to kill Franco.

Among the many obituaries published on Stuart the most perceptive that I have yet seen has been that of the historian Julián Casanova in El País 'El escocés de la FAI que trató de matar a Franco' Casanova argues that Stuart Christie believed that 'a fusion of different forms of resistance such as the workers, the students, the greens into the language of political anarchism. Just as Bakunin, thought it was possible to harmonise individualism with the socialist collectivism.' Casanova writes: 'He [Stuart] liked the men of action, but in reality he [Stuart] and his wife Brenda went on to propagate forms of idelogy with various cultural manifestations, which demonstrated the force of culture with ideas.'

'

Stuart's wife Brenda died last year aged 70 years, from cancer. Casanova writes: 'The obituaries now record that his prime intention was to kill Franco. Yet he was a committed anarchist using his pen and the engaged in cultural aggitation, in times when the revolutionaries with "consciences" have past into history. Anarchist solidarity, that reflects on the concequences of industrial capilalism, nuclear disarmament, and abuses by the State. He was a Scot who would have loved to live in the golden epoch of Spanish anarchism.'

Julián Casanova knew Stuart Christie from when he met him at Queen Mary College, London, in the Autumn of 1985. At that event were other hispanistas like Ronald Fraser, and he speaks warmly of the seminars, dinners and debates over the Spanish Civil War, Franco, the monarchy, Juan Carlos and the transistion.

It strikes me that Casanova understood Stuart better than most of us.

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Who is the real Karen Danczuk?

AS Karen Danczuk, the estranged wife of Simon Danczuk MP for Rochdale, was  pictured last week in The Sun newspaper entering La Belle beauty parlour in leafy Cheadle, Stockport, she said 'My healing starts now'.  She followed this up by branding her own 38-year-old brother, Michael Burke, a 'selfish coward' and declaring 'I hope he rots in jail'.  Mr. Burke had just been sentenced to 15-years on eight counts of rape and one indecent assault against his sister and two other women who cannot be named.  Mrs. Burke had previously told The Sun, 'My brother is a monster for raping me'.  She had told the jury the abuse perpetrated by her brother had ruined her schooling, left her incapable of love and intimacy and that she struggles with depression and anxiety.  Those of our readers who may not had seen Karen Danczuk, who is said to be a regular panelist on ITV's 'Loose Women', and has performed on 'Bear Grylls', may care to peruse the colourful detailed report below in The Sun's rival newspaper The Mail on Sunday published in July 2015:
 'claim of threats to kill ...' - The Danczuk's Dark Side!
Simon Danczuk and estranged wife Karen and a 'claim of threats to kill ...'

www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse...

Dark side of the Danczuks: A Spanish family holiday suddenly abandoned.  A text that read: ‘I’m scared.’  A claim of threats to kill... Disturbing questions about the MP who crusades against abuse

By David Rose for The Mail on Sunday

PUBLISHED: 22:06, 11 July 2015 | UPDATED: 13:50, 12 July 2015

It’s not often I say this but I’m scared,’ said the midnight text that Karen Burke sent to her mother, Sue, from Spain. ‘Who knows how long I’ll have to stay in [the] airport for? I can’t believe he’s done this!’ It was very late on August 25, 2008, and Karen’s future husband Simon Danczuk was about to dump her, their infant son, Milton, and her seven-year-old niece Eboni at Alicante airport after a titanic holiday row – without airline tickets or enough money to get home.

Soon to be elected as Rochdale’s Labour MP, Mr Danczuk would later become famous as a scourge of child abusers. But that day at Alicante after an evening of escalating conflict with his partner, he seemed ready to leave both Karen and the children to their fates. They were forced to wait at the airport all night while her family in Rochdale desperately tried to arrange and pay for flights home for them the next day.

Today, The Mail on Sunday can reveal disturbing new details of this incident – and of contemporary statements about it drawn up for a secretive Labour Party inquiry. These alleged that although he was apparently provoked, Mr Danczuk not only abandoned but physically assaulted his partner.

The inquiry was held not to decide whether Mr Danczuk had attacked Karen but whether those who claimed he had, by so doing so had brought the party into disrepute. It ruled in Mr Danczuk’s favour and five party members were expelled. Interviewed by this newspaper last week, some of the statements’ authors – close members of Simon and Karen Danczuk’s families – insisted they stand by what they said, and they remain certain they are relating the story as Karen told it to them.

Mr Danczuk has always denied the row became violent and that he assaulted Karen. Afterwards, they were reconciled and she now also denies the claims of an assault. She told Rochdale Online that she was distressed by the accusation, describing it as ‘very offensive’. And Mr Danczuk slammed the allegations as ‘vicious mischief making’, adding that they were ‘totally untrue and absolute nonsense’.

But even if the allegations of violence were exaggerated, it is clear they emerged directly from what Karen told her family that night and during the following day. The incident raises disturbing questions about the volatility of the couple’s subsequent marriage – which recently juddered to a very public halt. Our investigation comes as the Sunday Mirror today reports bizarre claims that Mrs Danczuk considered paying a lapdancer £1,000 to sleep with her husband in an attempt to end their marriage. Today we can reveal that: 

For more go to 

www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse...

Spain's Superior Sins!

Is Danczuk in trafficing in toenails lowering tone of Political Sin?

THE historian, Felipe Fernández-Armesto (10^th, February 2016) in El Mondo below ponders how Simon Danczuk, 'Pobre Simon Danczuk', may be devaluing the corrupt  practices of politicians to the level of something like comic opera.  While at least Spanish politicians approach a swindle in an intelligent worthwhile way with an eye for the economic value of the transaction Danczuk's dalliances in 'delinquencies' seem 'tonterias' or 'stupidities' by comparison.  By being titillated by a prostitutes toenails Danczuk would seem, on the face of it, to put even Mack-the-Knife from  Bertolt Brecht's 'The Threepenny Opera' in the shade.
For original article in El Mondo go to  

Política y sexo, mala conjunción | Opinión | EL MUNDO

www.elmundo.es › Opinión

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FELIPE FERNÁNDEZ-ARMESTO. 10/02/2016 03:02.

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Política y sexo, mala conjunction

by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

HOW MUCH, dear reader, for a bit of toenail?

The idea  would never have occurred to me to sell my toenails until I read the narratives of the journalists in the sex scandal that has raised big interest in the United Kingdom.  I refer to the case of the Labour MP, Simon Danczuk, who denounced his predecessor in the House of Commons,  the liberal Cyril Smith, known for his supreme fatness, yet also for his fame for his frankness that alarmed his colleagues.

Thanks to the intervention of Danczuk, Smith is now disgraced as a pedophile homosexual.  Now   Danczuk, since the failure of his marriage, has started a correspondence with a young girl of 17-years, proposing various sexual options that have been specified in reports published but that,including a good 'whipping'.  It is thought that he met a web fetishista where the girl sells – I cite the text of the Daily Mail:  'bits of her toenails' and samples of dirty underwear. 

I am very old and understand little of what's happening in the world of today.  Yet this history is very disconcerting, I suppose for everyone.

Two aspects , above all, are for me incomprehensible.  In the first place, the revelation that there exist such situations on the web leaves me perplexed.  How does one decide to announce an asset which will produce an offer?  How do you calculate its value?  Is the underwear that has been used to a state of great filthiness worth more than that that is only slightly soiled?  And the toenails, are they worth more more if they've been well used?  Is a big one of more value to a small one? Or is one of the small finger or of the attractive foot worth more for its daintiness than that of the fat foot?   Or maybe it is a question of colour.  One very brilliant, perhaps, will be more desirable sexually than another painted....

I don't want to have the cheek to imagine what the consumers do with the products obtained in the situation embraced by Señor Danczuk.  The underwear that serves let's suppose to wash-up the dishes, that results may work out more economic and more efficient, if I don't equivocate....  But, these toenails!  I confess that I am preoccupied.  Which perversion serves me? I don't suppose they are edible, like the rich feet of the pig that you cook in Galicia on the days of San Lázaro accompanied with chorizos or laurel sauce.  I don't go to connect to the web to realise investigations, nor go to register with a client and a pour over pornographic messages to fall over  Yes I have enough problems for me to inscribe on Skype with the object of making contact with persons whose names are evidently fictional, such as 'SexyKitten' and 'Spankykins'.  In case how then does a reader get things clear.  The requirement, in each case, should I maintain a decent silence and turn to the English poet, Alexander Pope, who said 'ignorance is bliss'.

Now I'm left perplexed with the persecution that we have in England with the disgraced sexually frustrated MP (Simon Danczuk).  In Europe, we are not wanted to bar our leaders as a consequence of sexual questions.  Making propositions to prostitutes is not, until now, the most grave offense.  Clearly Danczuk had thrown the first stone in denouncing Cyril Smith, and could be accused of hypocrisy.  But the 'pecado' that Smith did was presumed homosexual paedophilia:  quite distinct, from Danczuk's proposal of a session of 'ñaca-ñaca' to a lass that sells dirty underwear on the internet.  I know that the sexual practices we permit in one society, may be distinguished from that of others who would not accept those same practices.   These are always difficult to compare.  What one can say is that the important thing is that that the sex act is consensual.  For this reason, within the current legal doctrines, we would permit routine fornication, while always denying paedophilia and, within the sexual propositions, we'd admit good humour and condemn the repulsive...

In the case of sexual excess played out by politicians I can't find any coherent criteria.  In the United States, for example, Bill Clinton was able to keep the presidency despite having entertained Monica Lewinsky in the White House, while the Senator Gary Hart had to renounce his aspirations for the presidency for having an intrigue with a divorced woman.  In the 'case of Clinton', the consensus is not clear, because the young girl was working under the orders of the President, meanwhile in the 'case of Hart', the mature Señora was independent, and seemed to participate with enthusiasm with her lover. 

Eliot Spitzer, in another manifestation more recent example of the prudishness of the United States,  led to the resignation of a governor of New York for consorting with prostitutes.   The evidence that these relations were consensual and that they were paid special elevated prices – which, according to the citizens contributes most gravely in this case.  In France, we see, (Holland) abandon a series of women didn't damage a president of the republic, meanwhile in Italy , in the 'case of Berlusconi', the promiscuity without discernment only served at once to realise the machismo of the former Prime Minister.  Then we have poor Danczuk, who did no more than exchange text messages with a sales-woman of toenails.  He never met her or went to bed with her.  We don't even know if he had the consolation of acquiring toenails or garments of used underwear.  Yes,  we can accuse him of  bad taste; yes he may be stupid or pathetic; but he is not a monster like his predecessor in the House of Commons. 

There is no value to extend the sexual discussion, that would be basically irrational.  Nor does it deserve the trouble of studying the attitude of the public regard for the sexual stupidity of politicians because we can see this has an echo of the same irrationality.  Cases like that of Danczuk are part of the real world, even though some may think it alien, and throughly intelligible to a person of my generation.   Yes one can comment about the fraud of the electronic posts or drink powdered coca, or spend ones time following celebrities on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.  Until now one can vote on Celebrity Big Brother.  Also one is able to show interest for the pieces of toenail  of a prostitute.  For me, they are all are equally stupid!

But at least a clear conclusion that we can get out of this mess in over the interest in Danczuk:

In Spain in political life we are lucky to experience cases with much more frequency in financial corruption than sexual scandals, the body of interest of the Spanish public is in the sex lives of singers, actoresses, sportmen and the members of Royal families.  I agree that a councillor in the town of Toledo  ---- who had to resign for performing in a pornographic homemade video; but this was more for the difficulty of maintaining the dignity of his position than for the supposed erotic vice.  In Italy, we have the examples in the general elections, like the notorious Ciccionina, without any consequence.

In Spain, for a change, we are immersed in a list of hundreds of politicians implicated in frauds or bribery...  Therefore, the proper question to ask in the New Year with the cases of 'ERE' in Andalucia, 'Gürtel (with his 'Bárcenas' case' ), 'Nóos', 'Pujol', 'Púnica', 'Rato' and 'Torredembarra', 'the Popular Party of Valencia' ... without mentioning other examples of rumours or accusations that have been brought the courts, like that of Gómez of the Serna and I don't know how many more.

I believe we should be happy about our major affliction of our sexual corruption. But what are we make of the fiscal fraud, the bribery or the embezzlement of funds compared with the delinquency of Danczuk!   Which is a more logical, clever, coherent and practical of all those (economic) sins our own politicians commit  or those of the less fortunate people (like Danczuk)?  We don't have a major elite in the moral respect, but compared to the rest (Danczuk etc) our sins are more intelligent.

El Mondo Reports 'ESCÁNDALO • Parlamentario laborista ': 'SCANDAL OF LABOUR POLITICIAN'

Danczuk's 'Crime of Passion' Defence?

Under General Franco Simon Danczuk Could Have Killed Karen!

The report below on the El Mondo website by Marina Bou is interesting because it gives us a Spanish slant on the strange 'polemics' of the Danzcuk crisis.  El Mondo is perhaps the second most influential national newspaper after El Pais in Spain.  What English speaking readers should understand when considering this particular violent incident in the province of Alicante,

is that once upon a time in similar circumstances Simon could have killed Karen and had a strong defence under the 'crime of passion'.

In the early 1960s, when I was working and living on the Cabo San Antonio on the Costa Blanca (White Coast), just  up the coast from where the Danczuk's have their 'house', I was told by my boss of cases in which men in Denia had killed their wives caught red-handed having affairs and who were then liberated after murdering them.  The only worry then was for the men, and it was only I believe a defence for men (not women) who had been cuckolded, to depart their pueblo (town) so that

they themselves would not become victims of a vendetta from members of the victim's family.

As I understand it, the 'Crime of Passion' defence existed in Spain for cuckolded men like Simon Dancuk, until the death of General Franco in the mid-1970s.  Given the other excuses and justifications for his curious behaviour Mr. Dancuk, MP for Rochdale, has come up with so far, I'm surprised he hasn't fallen back on this historic 'crime of passion' defence.

Perhaps even more surprising is the silence of the British feminists over the exploits of the Honorary Member for Rochdale.  What for heavens sake, does the man have to do to incur their wrath?    Apart from Janet Street-Porter on the program 'Looses Women'; so far as I know, only one woman has spoken out against the curious conduct of Simon and Karen Danczuk.  That woman is the former Rochdale Labour Coucillor, Eileen Kershaw, who lives up Whitworth near Rochdale: she wrote a piece entitled 'Pack it in Karen' in the Rochdale Observer, and this was later reprinted under the same title on the Northern Voices' Blog.   
Karen Danczuk told to 'Pack it in'!

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How the Spanish press are reporting the Rochdale 'SCANDAL' as Simon Danczuk, the 'Labour politician' assails his former wife - a translation into English is underneath the Spanish account:

EL parlamentario británico Simon Danczuk, de 49 años, fue arrestado la noche del domingo (date 14th, August 2016) como supuesto autor de un delito de violencia de género contra su mujer en Alicante, el destino elegido por la pareja para disfrutar de sus vacaciones junto a sus dos hijos. Danczuk fue enviado ante un tribunal especializado en este tipo de crímenes en Orihuela, después de que su esposa tuviera que ser trasladada a un hospital con un pequeño corte provocado durante una fuerte discusión.

Tras pasar dos noches en el calabozo (la primera con la Policía Local y la segunda con la Guardia Civil), ella no presentó cargos y el caso fue archivado este martes una vez ambos declararon ante el juez en una audiencia a puerta cerrada.  El político -suspendido por los laboristas en diciembre al admitir que había enviado mensajes de alto contenido sexual a una joven de 17 años- fue liberado el mismo día debido a que su mujer se negó a ratificar en la corte lo que había dicho a la policía. Según la prensa británica, la familia se encontraba de vacaciones en su casa del municipio valenciano de Algorfa cuando empezó la pelea y los vecinos llamaron a la Policía Local, que lo arrestó y lo retuvo en el calabozo hasta que la Guardia Civil lo remitió a los juzgados de Orihuela.

El político -cuyo partido se ha negado a hacer ningún comentario- salió supuestamente de su casa esposado por la policía, tras arrebatarle el teléfono a su esposa y lanzarlo a una piscina al grito de "Karen, sólo quiero hablar contigo". La pelea habría surgido de una escena de celos de Danczuk, que se casó con su mujer tras su elección como parlamentario en 2010 y habría aceptado recientemente su adicción al sexo y una aventura con una joven de 22 años. Ella saltó a la fama después de compartir una serie de fotografías subidas de tono en Internet. La decisión del tribunal aún no es definitiva, pues se puede apelar si cambia de opinión y decide testificar contra su marido.

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Escándalo en España
translation of the above report in El

by Marina Bou (London 18/08/2016) on El Mondo website

The polemics of Simon Danczuk:  arrested in Alicante for harassing his partner:
THE British parliamentarian, Simon Danczuk, 49-years-old, was arrested on Sunday (14^th, August) for allegedly being the author of an offence of violence against his partner (Karen Danczuk) in Alicante, where the couple were enjoying their holidays with their two sons.  Danczuk appeared before a Special Court for these types of crimes in Orihuela, following which his partner (Karen) was taken to hospital with a small cut provoked during a strong discussion (Spanish journalistic irony or under statement?).
After he past two nights in cell (the first with the local police and the second with the Civil Guards), she (Karen Danczuk) did not present her evidence and the case was filed this Tuesday (16/08/16) and both parties accepted a declaration before a Judge in a private audience. 
The politician, Danczuk – who was suspended by the Labour Party last December when he admitted sending messages with a high sexual content to a young girl of 17-years – was liberated (by the Spanish authorities) on the same day that his partner failed to ratify in the Court what she had previously told the police.  According to the British press , the Danczuk family were taking their vacations in their house in the Valencian municipality of Algorfa when a an argument began and the neighbours called the local police, who the arrested Danczuk and took him to the cells and later to the Civil Guards barracks before placing him before the Judge in Orihuela.
The MP, who did not want to comment, is believed to have left his house in handcuffs with the police, after snatching the telephone of his partner and throwing it into the swimming pool with the cry:  'Only Karen wants to talk to you'.
The row had cropped up after a jealous scene of Danczuk, he had married Karen after his election in 2010, and has recently admitted his addiction to sex and an adventure with a young 22-year-old girl.  For her part, Karen, sprang to fame after she shared a series of risqué photographs on the Internet.  The decision of the Court in Orihuela is not yet final, it is still possible for there to be an appeal if there is a change of opinion and (Karen) should decide to testify against her partner (marido).

Call for Expusion Case to be re-opened!

SEVERAL former Labour Party members accused of 'bullying' Simon Danczuk in 2009, and later as a consequence expelled from the party, now want their case to be reopened in the light of the incident in Alicante last week in which Simon's former wife, Karen, ended up lying in a pool of blood.  After this Mr Danczuk spent two nights in a police cell.

The incident bears some similarities to an earlier case in 2008 when there was an allegation that Simon had 'hit' Karen.  This was later denied by both Simon and Karen.

In 2009, the expelled members had asked for an investigation of the facts, but they had been expelled for circulating 'nonsense' accusations about Mr. Danczuk. 

Consequently, given recent events the expelled group want their case re-heard.

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/30065/former-mayor-quits-labour-party-over-danczuk-debacle=

ROCHDALE ONLINE & Danczuk's Expenses

DISGRACED Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk's expense claims are being questioned again.
It has been revealed that Danczuk claimed £186.68 for a flight from a family holiday in Alicante to London Gatwick airport in May 2015.
In an email to the Independent Pariamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), Paul Mitchell has asked "why should the taxpayer foot the bill for a flight from a family holiday..."
Mr Mitchell's email reads:
 'Mr Danczuk has a holiday home near Alicante and spends considerable time there during school holidays.
 'On 19 May 2015, a day before flying back to the UK from his holiday home, he posted on Twitter that he had had a few days away.
 'On 20 May - the date of the flight claim - he posted, again on Twitter, that he was being sworn into Parliament.
'It does, therefore, beg the question why should the taxpayer foot the bill for a flight from a family holiday to be sworn into Parliament?
'I await to hear from you.'
For more go to https://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/

Danczuk, Feminism & Family Violence?

by Les May

A REVIEW of Erin Pizzey's book 'Prone to Violence' on Amazon has the title 'A revelation that has remained buried for decades'.  Although, as the reviewer says, Pizzey founded the first refuge for the victims of domestic violence in West London in the 1970s she seems to have been largely forgotten by present day feminists who are more concerned with how many women CEOs there are in the FTSE 100 or whether enough women appear on UK banknotes.

The reasons why are explored in the Amazon review and on Wikipaedia but they can be said to revolve around her claim, based upon her research, that one must distinguish between 'genuine battered women' and 'violence-prone women'.  The former she defined as 'the unwilling and innocent victim of his or her partner's violence' and the latter defined as 'the unwilling victim of his or her own violence.'  Essentially she was arguing that in at least some cases one must recognise a 'mutuality of domestic violence.'

Now you may be tempted to apply this thesis to the Danczuk's. Certainly it would explain why Karen initially made to her family accusations against Simon about an incident in Alicante in 2008, only to withdraw them a short while later and why we have recently seen a rerun of the same behaviour after Simon was arrested, again in Alicante, only for Karen to decline to confirm statements she had made to the police two days earlier, when the matter came to court.  But don't be too hasty.  There may be another explanation.

If Karen had followed through and pressed charges the Danczuk 'gravy train' would have come off the track.  Even Danczuk, brass necked though he is, would have found it difficult to resist the pressure to resign as an MP if he had been found guilty of being a 'wife beater'.  If he can stick it out until 2020 he will receive a further £274,000 in salary during that time.  And then there's the generous expenses, parts of which fund his constituency office which in April re-hired Karen as a part-time employee at a reported salary of £12,000.  If she sticks with him after the recent incident that's going to amount to £40,000 by 2020.

As I pointed out in my article 'Simon Danczuk on his way to the bank' from January of this year, as soon as he ceases to be an MP he is 'Mr Nobody' again.  His lucrative line in 'assisting' newspaper with stories of his indiscretions would dry up immediately. Stories like, 'I was drunk and horny' and 'I need counselling for my sex addiction' are only of interest to the press so long as he is an MP.

But it's not just Simon who appears to benefit from his indiscretions.  Check out the pictures which appeared in the Sun over the past week or so.  Initially Karen was shown with a scarf discretely draped over her right shoulder hiding her wound and the picture credited to 'News Group Newspapers'.  Next day we got the works (a.k.a the full monty) with her 'gruesome' wounds on display and the pictures credited to 'Fame Flynet'.  Was this a 'nice little earner' for Karen?

Then there's today's little offering in 'The Sun on Sunday'.  I was expecting 'My night in a Spanish hell-hole' and 'I need anger management' from Simon.  On expenses of course!  What we got was a double page spread of 'Karen Danczuk on terror of hubby's crazed bust up', 'Wild MP yelled and kicked in glass door', 'I feared he was going to kill me', 'Violent row left me paralysed with fear', and 'I woke up in a pool of bood.. I'm scarred for life'.  And that's just the captions!  Was this another 'nice little earner' for Karen, or was she just being public spirited?

Now call me Mr. Cynical but I cannot help noticing that if Karen had been willing to confirm what she appears to have initially told the Spanish policeman it would have been reported world wide as news and there would have been no Sun exclusive.  Just as 'I'm sorry I haven't a Clue' fans know that 'points mean prizes', seasoned Danczuk watchers know that 'exclusives mean cash'.

Explaining her unwillingness to press charges of domestic violence with, 'Do I want to be the person that finally ends his career?  Do I want to be the person who tells my sons their dad is in prison? No.' this interview may bring about both of these.

We already know that a complaint has been lodged with with Greater Manchester Police asking the force to investigate the allegations.  The seriousness of Karen's claims in the newspaper article are of such a nature they may give an impetus to this and will not doubt provide a basis for further complaints.

I'd be surprised if Rochdale Lib-Dems did not have a finger in this particular pie.  But who can blame them?  Throughout 2014 every possible attempt was made to smear them using the using the real and imaginary claims about Cyril Smith's antics.  Now it must be like Christmas and Birthday all rolled into one, courtesy of the Danczuks!

But don't write off the Danczuk duo just yet.  Karen still has the minor problem of earning a living to pay the bills and no doubt Simon still has access to a smartphone and Twitter.

I have repeatedly urged Rochdale Labour party to begin the process of disengaging itself from Simon Danczuk.  He's bad news and it's not going to get any better.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prone-Violence-Erin-Pizzey/dp/0600205517#customerReviews 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey 

 

http://danczuk.tripod.com/domestic-behaviour.html 

 

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/simon-danczuk-on-way-to-bank.html 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3549022/Now-Simon-Danczuk-HIRES-ex-wife-Karen-help-run-office-guess-picking-12-000-bill.html 

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1623573/karen-puts-injured-chest-under-wraps-as-she-heads-off-to-tell-court-to-free-mp-hubby/ 

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1629869/karen-danczuk-spotted-with-gruesome-wounds-after-waiter-bust-up-with-estranged-hubby-simon/ 

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1646861/karen-danczuk-says-shes-scarred-for-life-after-mp-hubby-simon-kicked-in-glass-door-during-crazed-bust-up-on-family-holiday/  

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1636054/mp-simon-danczuk-faces-second-police-investigation-for-attacking-his-ex-wife-on-holiday-in-spain/

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/30065/former-mayor-quits-labour-party-over-danczuk-debacle=

Simon Danczuk | CommonSpace

https://www.commonspace.scot/tags/simon-danczuk 

What the Simon Danczuk newspaper coverage says about British ...

www.theguardian.com  › Media › Simon Danczuk

 

Danczuk's in Boozy Bust-up!

by Les May

IT's deja vu all over again, again!
So after a night in a police cell and a second one in a Civil Guard holding cell, Simon Danczuk left court in Orihuela after state prosecutors asked for the case to be shelved seemingly because ex-wife Karen declined to ratify at court what she’d told police.  The court in question specialised in violence against women so the fact that he is now a free man does not in itself mean that he is entirely without a stain on his character.  Presumably the Spanish police would not have acted in the way they did without good reason. 
This looks awfully like a re-run of what happened in Alicante in August 2008. On that occasion Mr Danczuk called allegations that a row between them escalated into violence ‘vicious mischief making’, adding that they were ‘totally untrue and absolute nonsense’.  A detailed account of what is said to have happened was given on 12 July last year by a Mail on Sunday (MoS ) journalist, David Rose.  It contains the interesting line that 'a spokesman for Mr Danczuk said that the claims of violence were drivel, fed by Trotskyist loons’.  There's the 'T' word again!
At the time I suggested that the then acting leader Harriet Harman should suspend Mr Danczuk temporarily until a new investigation into what happened between the couple in Spain and subsequently, which took into account both the statements made by Karen Danczuk's family to the MoS and the copies of texts sent by Karen to her family. 
Strictly speaking there never was an investigation into what happened in Spain in 2008.  The original investigation was into the behaviour of seven members of Rochdale Labour party in signing a letter to the Rochdale Observer asking for an investigation into what had happened in Spain. 
Given Mr Danczuk's behaviour before he was suspended from the Labour party in December 2015 after the first 'sexting' incident, the irony is that the charges were brought under rule 2A.8 which reads:  'No member of the party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NCC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NCC is grossly detrimental to the party.'
Seemingly writing articles for the Tory press attacking the Labour leader does not fall foul of this rule. 
For me the most interesting question is whether the seemingly dysfunctional family unit that is the Danczuk's will have social workers crawling all over their lives.  Will they be subjected to 'case conferences' and 'core group meetings'?  Will their children find themselves on the 'at risk' register?  Will they find themselves in court explaining why their children should not be placed in foster care?  Or are these just things we reserve for the poor and the 'underclass' who find it difficult to defend themselves?  
Sixty years ago in his 'bible' of social democracy, The Future of Socialism, Tony Crossland made it clear that an equal society is not just about the distribution of income or wealth, it was also about how equally power was distributed in a society.  It's a lesson we have either forgotten or never learned.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1617406/labour-mp-simon-danczuk-ended-up-in-police-cell-after-holiday-row-with-estranged-wife-karen-who-ended-up-in-hospital/ 
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/simon-karen-danczuk-spain-assault-11757474
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157459/Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse.html
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/will-labour-suspend-mr-damczuk.html
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/danczuks-victim-of-2009-breaks-silence.html