Mail says Theresa May snubbed Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi - Refused asylum in UK by vicars daughter Theresa May

ACCORDING to the Mail Online Theresa May is alleged to be refusing asylum to the Christian mother, Asia Bibi, who having had a sentence for blasphemy lifted is now being hunted by lynch mobs in Pakistan. 

The fate of Asia Bibi has pitted Home Secretary Sajid Javid against the Prime Minister, with Mr Javid arguing passionately that she should be given refuge in the UK.

As the political row rages, The Mail on Sunday at the weekend revealed the full extent of the ordeal endured by Ms Bibi, a Roman Catholic from the Punjab province who was given the death sentence in 2010 after she was accused of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed.

The Mail on Sunday investigation reveals that on the day she was seized by villagers in 2009 and accused of blasphemy, she was paraded through her village with a leather noose around her neck, beaten with sticks by a baying mob during a ‘court’ hearing and told that her life would be spared only if she converted to Islam.

Bibi’s conviction was quashed last month following eight years in solitary confinement after Pakistan’s Supreme Court said the case was based on ‘inconsistent’ evidence.

Her acquittal prompted days of demonstrations by thousands of hardline Islamists who demanded she be hanged.  Ms Bibi is now in hiding after Imran Khan’s government agreed to allow a petition against the court’s decision as part of a deal to halt the protests.

So instead of being reunited with her five children she is being hunted across Pakistan, forced to scuttle under cover of darkness between safe houses.

Her supporters in the UK have lobbied the Government in vain to offer her asylum in Britain.
It is understood that Mr Javid was backed in his battle by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, despite the fact his officials said allowing her to take sanctuary in the UK would endanger the security of British diplomats in Islamabad.

A senior Government source said: ‘Sajid was very sceptical about the official advice, and pushed hard for her to be given asylum here.  It eventually landed on the Prime Minister’s desk, but she just followed the advice of the officials’.

The problem began when Ms Bibi was harvesting berries in 2009 when her Muslim co-workers accused her of being unclean, prompting an argument and allegations Ms Bibi blasphemed against Islam, which she strongly denies.

This newspaper has pieced together the terrifying sequence of events which followed: she was taken to a makeshift sharia court and flung at the feet of an imam, who told her:  ‘You know what happens to people who insult the Prophet.  You can redeem yourself by accepting Islam.’

Asia declined as the crowd began jeering and spitting.  She was then whipped with sticks and sandals, leaving her bleeding and semi-conscious.  Her life was only saved when a teacher intervened, saying she should be handed over to police.

The Foreign Office said: ‘The UK’s primary concern is for the safety of Asia Bibi and her family.  A number of countries are in discussions to provide a safe destination’.

The Home Office declined to comment, while No 10 said:  ‘Bibi’s safety is the Prime Minister’s only concern.’ 

It is reported that Ms Bibi had been offered asylum by Australia.

**********

FBI tipped off MI5 about Abedi in January

THE FBI warned UK security chiefs back in January that Salman Abedi was planning an attack in Britain according to reports.

This newly released information puts pressure on the British intelligence community to provide answers as to why they didn’t feel Abedi was a significant threat, and if the attack could have been prevented.

The source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘In early 2017 the FBI told MI5 that Abedi belonged to a North African terror gang based in Manchester, which was looking for a political target in this country.'

The information came from the interception of his communications by US federal agents, who had been investigating Abedi since the middle of 2016, and from information unearthed in Libya, where his family was linked to terrorist groups.

‘Following this US tip-off, Abedi and other members of the gang were scrutinised by MI5. It was thought at the time that Abedi was planning to assassinate a political figure.

‘But nothing came of this investigation and, tragically, he slipped down the pecking order of targets.’

Last night, The Mail on Sunday put the claim to the FBI but a bureau spokesman declined to comment, while UK security sources did not confirm the specific claim about the tip-off.

Editor: A report by Daily Mail columnist, Peter Oborne, says: "Often with the connivance of MI6, during the early years of the Syrian war, hundreds of British citizens were allowed to travel abroad to join Jihadist organizations." Read More:

Rochdale Fly-tipping Evokes Nothing Much!

MICK Coats' question about illegal fly-tipping on Spodden Valley off Rooley Moor Road, did not evoke much response from the assembled councillors on the Labour dominated Rochdale Township Committee meeting tonight.   Sullen councillors sat stiffly as Mr Coats asked what the owners of the controversial site invested with asbestos intend to do to stop or resolve the problem of the fly-tipping.
Ten days ago the Mail on Sunday journalists Ross Slater and Sanchez Manning warned of how an idyllic country estate endured the 'shocking toll of fly-tipping gangs who despoil Britain'.
The Mail story rells of how  'Balaclava-clad intruders used bolt-cutters to break into (an) estate (in rural Shropshire) .... and dump up to 200 tons of rubbish in woodland'. 
As a consequence the Mail on Sunday reports that the Staffordshire Police are appealing for information.
The Mail journalists comment on the situation regardin waste disposal across the country that we in Rochdale are all familiar with:
'Local authority waste collection services are being cut, leading to criminals offering to dispose of waste at knockdown prices.  They then dump it illegally.'
As the Mail on Sunday rages about the crisis of illegal dumping, Mr. Coats appealed the Rochdale councillors tonight for some kind of response but amid the concern about the state of debis being deposited on the slopes of Spodden Valley, from the assembled councillors reply came there none!
The best Mick Coats can hope for is that a written reply will be forthcoming shortly.

Jeremy Corbyn & Trident

Out of Step

‘SOME of Corbyn’s positions are flatly unpopular,’ Tom Crewe writes (LRB, 11 August).  ‘On Trident especially he is way out of step with public opinion.’  He supplies no evidence in support of this wild statement.  The CND’s website lists 11 different polls over the last ten years that have indicated majorities against renewal of Trident:  63 per cent in the Mail on Sunday in June 2010, 58 per cent in the Independent in September 2009 and so on.  Stop the War cites data compiled by Nick Ritchie and Paul Ingram, who reviewed all the polling data between 2005 and July 2013.  They found that ‘13 representative polls have offered a straight choice between renewing Trident or not. Opinion has varied from poll to poll and from year to year, but seven surveys have found more opposition to renewal than support.’  The average was 39.4 per cent in favour of renewing Trident and 44.4 per cent against, with the rest unsure.  When the cost of Trident is mentioned, support tends to drop significantly.  In a study conducted by Greenpeace in 2005, for example, 44 per cent supported Trident and 46 per cent opposed it, but if an alternative spending proposal was mentioned – the number of schools that could be built instead – just 33 per cent remained in favour and 54 per cent against.  A YouGov poll in 2009 that offered alternative spending proposals found that just 30 per cent opted to spend the money on nuclear weapons.

What’s more, these polls were taken when the costs of Trident were estimated to be much lower than they are now.  The lifetime cost of Trident is currently estimated at £205 billion and, according to the Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, could rise exponentially.   ‘This is a colossal investment in a weapons system that will become increasingly vulnerable,’ he has said, ‘and for whose security we will have to throw good money after bad – in fact tens of billions more than already estimated – to try to keep it safe in the decades to come.’

Frank Stone
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

 

Letter in London Review of Books / Sept 2016

Letter sent to NV from Trevor Hoyle, Rochdale.

The Humbug of Professional Feminism

by Les May

I AM not a feminist.  I dislike feminism as a philosophical stance, because I see no reason to privilege one section of society over another and as a political stance it seems to me self serving, inherently reactionary, intent upon perpetuating unfairness and hierarchies, and destructive of personal relationships.  

Now simply writing this is probably (certainly?) enough to get me lumped with the men that Julie Bindel was writing about in her 2006 opinion piece for the Guardian, 'Why I hate men'.  Seemingly writing that you 'hate' men is OK but writing 'I hate EMOs or Goths or..' well fill in you own list here, could get your remarks logged as 'hate crime'.

Perhaps the height of absurdity has now been reached when a recent piece in the 'i' newspaper turned out to be an interview with a 'professional' feminist, a job which I assume is more lucrative and less tiring than say working for Sports Direct or Amazon.

But whilst 'professional' feminists are still mercifully rare, building a career around feminism is not.  I've already mentioned Julie Bindel who certainly falls into this category, but she is almost unknown outside feminist circles.  Much better known is Labour's  Harriet Harman, she of the 'pink bus' and cousin to David Cameron.  The 'pink bus' campaign did not go down well with some women as you will see from Ella Whelan's comments at Spiked Online.

Harriet's silence on Simon Danczuk's past and recent activities in Spain is telling and suggests she is a bit of a humbug.  In 2002 the BBC reported:

'Crown prosecutors are to be urged to press on with prosecutions in cases of domestic violence, even if the victim wants the case dropped.

Solicitor General Harriet Harman is backing the move as part of a range of measures to crack down on domestic abuse.

'It is about where the public interest lies when the victim is insisting the case be dropped," she will tell a police conference on domestic violence on Tuesday.

'She might want to forgive him, but the next time he assaults her she could be killed.'

So why did she not speak up when the Mail on Sunday reported at length in July 2015 on what Karen Danczuk's family claimed happened in Spain in 2008.  And why, after Mr Danczuk was arrested in Spain recently following an incident which has striking similarities with the 2008 incident, is she still silent?

And before anyone tells me that Mr Danczuk is suspended from the Labour party at present and does not hold the Labour whip, you should know that he is once again trying to sail his ship with a Labour flag, as you will see if you check out his job advert.

Labour MPs have other things to think about at present, like their holidays, but even if they are wise to keep their mouths shut about Simon's recent constituency office tryst, the story Karen Danczuk told in the Sun on Sunday only a few days ago merits a response.  At least from a woman who was once a Labour Solicitor General.  Ironically it is a group of men who were expelled from the Labour party who have made the link between the events in Spain in 2016 and 2008, and want the fallout from the latter re-opened.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/02/whyihatemen

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

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-british-feminist-party-no-thanks/15924

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/10/pink-bus-labour-women-mps-kitchen-table-tour-female-voters

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/harmans-barbie-bus-the-new-face-of-feminism/16697

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2348319.stm  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157459/Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse.html

http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=57245  

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/call-for-expusion-case-to-be-re-openned.html

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

The Left & Brexit: Is Corbyn Trying?

by Les May

LAST Saturday's edition of the 'i' newspaper had a column by Andrew Grice, headed 'Corbyn could decide the EU vote – so why isn't he trying?' 
Now both the 'i' and Grice 'have form' in being negative about Corbyn and this piece was no exception.  So it was hinted that Corbyn is making a half-hearted attempt to persuade Labour voters to back 'Remain' and that he is an instinctive 'Outer' who voted to leave in 1975, and only 'went with the flow' of his party when he became leader.

On the letters page was this:
'On Thursday I was privileged to be in a packed audience in Bristol to hear him (ed. Corbyn) make an impassioned and forceful case for Remain.  Not the modified Tory leadership race but a positive case for the good that has been done for the environment, the right of workers to fair treatment, and care and concern for the disadvantaged.' 
The writer went on to point out that there was no mention on the TV news and local BBC news had something low down in the running order.

So obsessed has the press become with the Tory infighting over the EU that the notion that there might be a distinctive case to be made from a left-wing perspective both for remaining in the EU and for leaving it, is never aired.  This reflects the fact that since the 1970s the whole locus of political debate in Britain has shifted so far to the right to such an extent that anything else is inconceivable.  Grice and the 'i' are manifestations of this phenomenon.

The Guardian's economics editor Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson the economics editor of the Mail on Sunday have been commissioned to write from a left of centre perspective a book on the Euro in the wake of last summer's crisis about the possibility that Greece would exit the single currency.  The book 'Europe isn't working' will be published by Yale University Press in the autumn, but Elliot gave us a flavour of the contents in last Friday's Guardian.

Elliot reports, seemingly with approval:
'Tony Benn's warning at the time of the 1975 referendum that Britain was signing up for something that was 'undemocratic, deflationary and run in the interests of big business' and 'I can think of no body of men outside of the Kremlin who have so much power without a shred of accountability for what they do'.

Is it surprising then that, like me, Corbyn and about one in three of the population voted against continued membership?

But having stated so well the left-of-centre case for leaving in 1975 Elliot weakens his case for leaving now by resorting to a 'catch all' argument when he goes on:
 'The left-of-centre case for divorces is that Europe doesn't work, is not remotely progressive and is heading for an existential crisis anyway.  Last year's crisis was Grexit.  This year's threat is Brexit.  Next years threat will be something else; Italy leaving the single currency, perhaps, or Marie Le Pen's tilt at the French presidency.'

If Elliott thinks this is a 'left-of-centre' case for Brexit he is fooling himself.  Anyone in the Brexit camp could have made it and probably has already.

But in fairness to Elliott he states the case for continued membership of the EU succinctly. 'One left-of-centre argument against Brexit is that it it would result in the break up of the Euro and set of a chain reaction that would lead to the next global crisis; a perfectly fair point.  Those who fear that another recession and even higher levels of joblessness would threaten a return to the totalitarian politics of the 1930s are right to highlight the risks.'

What Tony Benn said in 1975 still applies.  But in my judgement leaving now risks all the above and ignores the fact that we in Britain have our own pretty good record of governments letting the interests of big business override questions of accountability and avoiding democratic decision
making when it suits them.

Here are two recently reported examples.  Last Thursday speaking at a CBI bash Alastair Darling recounted how in May 2008 Fred, 'The Shred', Goodwin had phoned him to say:
'RBS is haemorrhaging money. We can only survive another two or three hours.  What are YOU going to do about it?'  I'll repeat that, 'What are YOU going to do about it?'

A month after Goodwin took early retirement RBS announced the largest corporate annual loss in UK history of £24.1 billion.  This didn't stop the pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph saying, 'his grasp of finance is in the Alpha class' and that he was 'unlikely to be in the growing queue of jobless bankers' for long'.

Had Darling let RBS go bust Goodwin would have been entitled to a pension of £28,000 a year at starting at age 65.  Because the state, (a.k.a. you and me), stepped in Goodwin was able to retire early with a tax free £2.7 million lump sum and now gets a 'reduced' annual pension of £342,500.  

At a conference on 'fracking' last week with reference to planning delays Francis Egan, the Chief Executive of Cuadrilla told energy minister Andrea Leadsom, 'the words are good, the intent is good but the delivery is not. Investors have patience but it's not limitless.'  He was complaining that the government had not yet implemented its promise last August to intervene if councils failed to meet the deadline of 16 weeks to approve or reject fracking applications.  Leadson replied 'The new measures we've introduced will help to make this happen.  We are addressing a problem that causes unnecessary delays.'

That's right four months to decide on something that could affect very large areas of the country for years to come and may bring about irreversible changes to ground water.

Incidentally Cuadrilla is privately owned which means very little about its activities will find its way into the public domain.  How's that for accountability?

Voting for Brexit won't change things like this.  But I'm sure it will make some people feel better.  I'd rather they felt angry that things like this are happening in our country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Goodwin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuadrilla_Resources

Catfight on Twitter!

POLITICS hit a new low earlier this week with reports of a confrontation in the Stranger's Bar of the House of Commons, between Simon Danczuk, the notorious MP for Rochdale, and the Labour MP for the neighbouring constituency of Heywood and Middleton, Liz McInnes.  This encounter followed a catfight on Twitter between Ms. McInnes and Mr Danczuk's former wife, Karen Danczuk.

One witness to the bar-room altercation told The Mail on Sunday:  'Simon was pretty menacing towards her, and could be heard saying words to the effect that he had people who could dig up stuff on her and her team.'  
Danczuk is suspended from the Labour Party:  His suspension followed claims that he sent explicit texts to a 17-year-old girl after the break-up.  He is being investigated by the expenses watchdog IPSA over whether he legitimately claimed thousands of pounds in allowances for looking after his children. 
Since his suspension Danczuk MP has had a hard time with alleged scandals over his private life and finances.  The latest blemish has been the purloining of intellectual property, exposed this week on this Northern Voices Blog,  with regard to the use without permission of iconic material from the locally highly respected publication the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP), which ceased publication in the 1980s.  For which a former editor of RAP received a payment from Mr. Danczuk's publisher Biteback Publishing, which will now go towards an African children's charity for the erecting of a toilet block.
In the current catfight spat between Karen and Liz McInnes MP, Karen Danczuk, who works in Mr Danczuk’s Rochdale office, had tweeted: 

'I really want to fight Middleton and Heywood at the next General Election for MP!! It’s time they had a home girl putting the town first.'

Yet, her record as a local councillor left something to be desired, and her principle political assets seem to be from the neck down!   Certainly that seems to be the area of her anatomy on which she has based her reputation in politics and beyond. 

To her credit the Heywood and Middleton MP, Liz McInnes, had responded by trying to tone things down by tweeting:  

'Karen, I have no intention of getting into a slanging match with you. Have a nice day.'

*******

Domestic Tiffs in Ambridge & Rochdale

Rochdale's Liberals 'Lend Credibility to Spurious Tabloid Tales'

AS the residents of Ambridge in the Archers on  Radio Four grapple with the domestic conflicts of Rob and Helen; in Rochdale last week the former Labour Councillor Martin Burke reminded us of the domestic difficulties in the private life of Simon Danczuk MP for Rochdale in his letter to the Rochdale Observer.  In this letter on the 6th, April, the now Mr. Martin Burke put up an heroic defence of Simon Danczuk, in which he suggested that the Liberal Democrat Councillor Andy Kelly had 'claimed recent publicity surrounding Mr. Danczuk's private life is to blame all of Rochdale's ills'.  
The situation in Ambridge between Helen and Rob may well border on the melodramatic with Rob in hospital with a collapsed lung and a severed bowel, but the situation in Rochdale with what the Mail on Sunday journalist, David Rose, entitled 'The dark side of the Danczuk's' and other aspects of curious behavior involving the honourable Member for Rochdale, has reduced politics in the town to the realm of Comic Opera. 
Martin Burke's letter supporting Simon Danczuk in the Rochdale Observer merely reinforces the image of comedy:  For the a feature article in the Mail on Sunday last July by David Rose headlined 'The dark side of the Danczuk's:  A Spanish family holiday suddenly abandoned'  Martin Burke is alleged to have confirmed that his daughter Karen had 'appeared to be bruised on her return' from a holiday in Spain in 2008 with her then partner Mr. Simon Danczuk, who was at that time the Labour candidate in the Rochdale constituency. 
On the 12th, July 2015, David Rose wrote in the Mail on Sunday:

'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.'  
What was the evidence for this? 
Simon Danczuk himself has always denied that the tiff became violent and that he assaulted his then partner, Karen Burke, the daughter of Martin Burke.  
The story in last July's Mail on Sunday reveals the evidence of one witness:

'Martin Burke yesterday confirmed to me that Karen appeared to be bruised on her return. Her mother, Sue, told me the same. ‘I’m only sorry I didn’t take photos,’ she said. ‘On the phone, she told me he’d attacked her. Yet the day after she got home, she was going on about how it was lies.'

Can this be the same Martin Burke who is now condemning the Liberal Democrat, Andy Kelly for 'vilifying Mr Danczuk'? 
No wonder Les May in his letter below responding to Martin Burke's letter is expressing bewilderment.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157459/Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse.html#ixzz45XQ86Afy

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

This link may be worth including in any preamble that you write.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157459/Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse.html

Letter to the editor of the Rochdale Observer (9th, April 2016):

Dear Editor,

As a lifelong Labour voter it pains me to have to point out that Andy

Kelly seems more in tune with what people think about Mr Danczuk's

behaviour since he became the town's MP than Martin Burke appears to be.

As for the 'spurious tabloid tales' which Mr Burke refers to he should

note that it is not Mr Kelly who was suspended by his party for

'inappropriate' texts sent to a young woman; it is not Mr Kelly who has

been told to pay back £11,000 of parliamentary expenses he claimed but

was not entitled to; it is not Mr Kelly who financially benefited from

one of those 'tabloid tales'. Need I go on?

And if Mr Kelly is taking advantage of Mr Danczuk's fall from grace

should we be surprised? After all throughout the summer of 2014 we were

regularly treated to attempts to smear the Lib-Dems with regard to the

thirty five year old story of Cyril Smith's antics at Cambridge House,

until it was pointed out that at the time Smith was a member of the

Labour party and that the late Mr Roger Chadwick had gone on record as

saying that he told the Labour agent about Smith's behaviour at the

time.

Had Mr Burke not felt the urge to respond, Mr Kelly's comments would

have been forgotten. Now they have been given a new lease of life. Or

was that the idea all along?

 

Les May

Another 'Useful Idiot'?

by Les May

HAVING played the role of 'useful idiot' throughout most of last autumn Simon Danczuk now finds himself displaced by Michael Dugher as the Mail on Sunday's favourite Labour MP willing to have his name attached to a piece attacking Jeremy Corbyn.

One thing which does emerge from this story is that Mr. Dugher abandons the pretence of Danczuk and his ilk to be 'moderates', and declares himself to be a 'Labour Right-winger'.

Dugher may be flattered to be called a 'senior Labour MP' and 'seen by some as a future Labour leader'. He may even be flattered to be described as 'a reverse image of pro-Palestinian, shell-suited, Left-wing, national-anthem-mumbling, vegetarian, teetotal, pacifist Corbyn', but to be described as 'plotting his own revenge' is an act of foolishness he may live to regret.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3424749/You-99-days-prove-win-ll-time-tell-Politburo-power-Soviets-won-t-cut-masses-Labour-rebel-issues-day-election-warning-Comrade-Corbyn.html

The Incontinent Indiscretions of Simon Danczuk

by Les May

ON Saturday 9 December my local paper ran a story headed 'Online "death threat" to Syria air strikes MP'.  The MP in question was Simon Danczuk and he said he had reported the threat to the police.  Hopefully he did this before reporting it to the press. 

If I appear mildly sceptical about this story it's because we have heard nothing more about it.  The police take things like this extremely seriously and a couple of days ago Craig Wallace was jailed for making an online threat to Bristol North MP Charlotte Leslie after the Syria vote. 

In the same article the ever imaginative Mr D. accused John McDonnell of making a 'veiled threat' against him.  It seems that speaking to the Momentum group McDonnell had said, 'Simon is Simon...  you just have to work with him. Eventually we'll resolve the matter.' and 'In an amicable way I will convince him to my way of thinking.' 

Danczuk's take on this was that McDonnell's comments were  'undeniably sinister' and 'I regard what he said and how he said it (was he there?) as a veiled threat'.  What should have worried Simon was that his name was greeted with laughter from the audience. 

Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in September Mr D has worked hard to construct the myth that he was always on the point of being kicked out of the Labour party for his constant attacks on Corbyn.  In spite of the level of grassroots support for this, Corbyn and his closest allies must have realised that such a move would be taken as confirmation that the party had been taken over by extremists intolerant of criticism. 

In this Danczuk was egged on by both the Sun and the Daily Mail which were ever ready to give him a platform for his attacks on Corbyn.  Whether he actually wrote the articles himself we do not know, but presumably he was well paid for his name being at the top of them. 

This strategy of trying to force the Labour party to self destruct in a barrage of recriminations did not work.  Far from it.  As the Mail article of 24 October made clear, when Simon met Jeremy the previous Wednesday the meeting was entirely cordial.  Corbyn seems to have leant over backwards to extend a friendly hand to Danczuk.  This patient approach began to pay off.  As Nigel Morris of the Independent pointed out  on New Year's day, 'His open and indiscriminate defiance of Mr Corbyn dismayed right-leaning supporters, who feared he was becoming a joke figure ...  ' 

But all this came crashing down on New Year's Eve when, having served as a 'useful idiot' for the Sun and Mail Danczuk found himself front page news and being described by these same papers in terms not dissimilar to those he had been happy to use about Cyril Smith when trying to paint him as a predatory paedophile. 

If we dispense with the 'post facto rationalisation' indulged in by the media Danczuk's 'crime' was that he responded to unsolicited texts from a young woman with replies containing sexual innuendo.  They read to me like an extremely clumsy attempt at flirting.  As one might expect the media reports see his antics in a different light.  The text messages were 'vile'. The young woman has become a 'young girl'. 

In fact she was seventeen and judging by the amount of cleavage showing on her Twitter page certainly doesn't think of herself as a child.  According to the Daily Record her replies to his overtures included her saying she was 'turned on' and imagining 'moaning' Mr Danczuk’s name.  The Sunday Mirror carried an article telling readers that she was a self described 'financial dominatrix' operating over the web who greeted clients with the phrase 'Hello Piggy Losers', before enticing men into becoming her 'money slaves', 'cash cows' and 'pay pigs'.  It is hardly a picture of childlike innocence which emerges! 

But all this presents a dilemma for his party.  Labour had to act and to be seen to act decisively.  They've done that by suspending him from the party and withdrawing the whip which means he will have to sit as an Independent.  In six to eight weeks he will have to appear before the National Executive and explain himself.  Whether a charge that he exploited his position as a potential employer whilst exchanging texts full of sexual innuendo with someone under the age of 18 could be made to stick I'm sceptical.  Much will depend upon the wording of the first texts the pair exchanged. 

What is clear it that Danczuk is a fool who showed himself to be completely incapable of exercising proper judgement.  The best (and worst if one is wishes to avoid moralising) that one can say about his antics is that his behaviour was 'inappropriate'.  But that's quite sufficient to allow a charge of 'bringing the party into disrepute'.    

Danczuk 'has form' when it comes to accusations of 'bringing the party into disrepute'.  The difference is that this time he will be the accused not the one making the complaint. 

On 11 July this year the Mail on Sunday carried an article by David Rose headed 'The 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'.  The incident reported by Rose led to five long serving members of Rochdale Labour party being expelled and two suspended after they wrote to the local paper in late 2008 saying that the matter should be investigated. 

Unsurprisingly one of those expelled is calling for Danczuk to be dumped by the Rochdale party, and for the role of the North West Regional Labour Party in disciplining the seven members to be looked at again in the light of recent events. 

It would be fitting if this did happen but it may not be the wisest course of action.  Already we have Tory MPs claiming that Danczuk has been 'stitched up like a kipper by the Corbyn cronies' and that he has been suspended for being a critic of Corbyn.  And whilst the Sun and Mail as the finest representatives of the 'street of shame' may have lovingly served up Danczuk for our delectation, if he is unceremoniously dumped he could become an instant martyr for them if they so choose. 

It may be better for Labour to keep him at arms length for as long as possible without actually sacking him. Speaking to the Sunday Mirror former girlfriend Claire Hamilton said he had vowed to stand as an Independent but not do any campaigning if his career was threatened. She added:
'He said he wanted to make sure Labour lost the seat he won for them.' 

Even at the risk of prolonging the agony the Labour party needs to conduct a thorough investigation into the bizarre events involving death threats and wreaths which occurred at the time of Danczuk's selection as a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Rochdale in 2007, his involvement in all the events leading up to the expulsion of five members of the Rochdale Labour party in 2009, and whether his constituency office or anyone employed by him had any involvement in using Cavendish Media to promote a video which falsely purported to show Rochdale Labour Councillor Farooq Ahmed smoking cannabis in 2011, and/or in the circulation of an e-mail smearing the then Leader of Rochdale Council Colin Lambert in November 2012. 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/30/man-jailed-for-online-threat-to-mp-who-voted-for-syria-airstrikes

http://www.dailymail.cho.uk/news/article-3244928/Corbyn-purge-moderates-started-claims-Labour-MP-Simon-Danczuk-warns-concerted-effort-oust-him.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3250583/The-party-love-deluded-bullying-cult-Labour-MP-SIMON-DANCZUK-slams-Corbyn-s-Hard-Left-crowd-pleasing-syrup.html http://www.sunnation.co.uk/corbynites-on-witch-hunt-to-purge-moderates-mp-claims/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3288055/Corbyn-night-President-XI-boring-SIMON-DANCZUK-got-hauled-leader-MoS-columns-result-best-one-yet.html

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

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/6831118/Labour-MP-Simon-Danczuk-sends-sleazy-texts-to-young-girl.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3380150/Simon-Danczuk-suspended-Labour-Party-amid-sex-text-allegations.html

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/sex-text-teen-tells-simon-7101370

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/teenager-sexted-shamed-mp-simon-7109909

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUY3T5Di0kM

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/100150/simon-danczuk-suspended-from-the-labour-party

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35204398

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157459/Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse.html

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/100159/mick-coats-one-of-the-rochdale-seven-calls-for-rochdale-constituency-labour-party-to-get-rid-of-danczuk

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-mp-says-simon-danczuk-has-been-stitched-up-by-corbynites-after-suspension-for-sending-teenager-a6792051.html

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/12/jeremy-corbyn-must-be-delighted-by-simon-danczuks-suspension-from-labour/

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/31/labour-mp-simon-danczuk-suspended-over-explicit-text-message-allegations

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/quit-race-or-die-980521

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/orginal-source-for-story-of-dodgy-e-mail.html

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/98147/former-danczuk-spin-doctor-matt-baker-accused-of-vile-attack-and-smear-campaign

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/rochdales-united-party-or-labour-party.html

Simon Danczuk: Paul Dacre’s Hired Scribe

IF there's one thing you can say about Simon Danczuk it's that he's full of his own importance as can be seen from his latest article for the Mail on Sunday, whose editor in chief is Paul Dacre.  So when John McDonnell responded to Danczuk's latest attempts to destabilise Jeremy Corbyn by dismissing them as, 'Simon being Simon', he showed an astute awareness of just how Danczuk manipulates the media to enhance his reputation and his bank balance.

McDonnell is reported to have said that 'moderate' Labour MPs must come to terms with the party’s new direction, but that left-wing activists would not be allowed to force them out.

He also said, ‘We are opposing any threat to individual MPs.  We are not in favour of reselection.  The democratic processes in the Labour position will take place in the normal way.  There is no way we will allow MPs to be deselected in that way.  We will work together on this.’

This sort of conciliatory attitude by McDonnell and seemingly by Corbyn, may not be what Simon is really looking for.  Last week I heard the idea being floated that what Simon wants is to provoke party members into calling for him to be expelled for bringing the Labour party into disrepute so that he can play the martyr toddle off and join the Tories.

At the time I thought it was a bit far fetched, but now I'm not so sure.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3288055/Corbyn-night-President-XI-boring-SIMON-DANCZUK-got-hauled-leader-MoS-columns-result-best-one-yet.html

http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/simon-danczuk-complete-shit.html

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/25/corbyn-leadership-challenge-labour-mp-threatens-to-stand-if-may-elections-disappoint

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-faces-leadership-challenge-from-simon-danczuk-if-labour-perform-badly-in-mays-a6707721.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3288156/New-Labour-crisis-rebel-MP-Simon-Danczuk-says-Corbyn-stalking-horse-clear-way-rising-stars.html   

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4595720.ece

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/simon-danczuk-threatens-topple-jeremy-6700810

Danczuk's Victim of 2009, Break's Silence!

'Domestic Incident' that led to Labour Party Sackings

by Mick Coats

Editor:  Mick Coats, who writes below of an incident in 2009 in which he and others were excluded from the Labour Party following a complaint from Simon Danczuk, now the M.P for Rochdale, about a letter they sent to the Rochdale Observer requesting a Labour Party investigation into a 'domestic incident' involving Mr. Danczuk and his then girlfriend Karen Burke, that took place in Spain.

IT is over six years since Rochdale Labour Party suspended two and expelled five of it's members.  In the light of the recent actions, comments and newspaper articles by Rochdale's MP Simon Danczuk, we feel that it is the appropriate time to speak out on events then and now.

In September 2009 seven members of Rochdale Labour Party (RLP) were brought before the Labour Party National Constitutional Committee (NCC) to be disciplined for breaking Party rules.  The seven long- standing active members were asked to attend a hearing at the Broadfield Hotel.

The main charge against all but one member was that they wrote a letter to the Rochdale Observer asking for the Party to investigate a domestic incident in Spain between Simon Danczuk and his then girlfriend Karen Burke. The matter was exposed in two angry emails sent by Karen Burke's brother Steven.

The North West Region of the Labour Party presented the case even though Simon Danczuk was the subject of the incident which members asked to be properly investigated.  At the time Simon Danczuk was on the ruling body of the North West Regional Labour Party.

The investigation was reported on by Rochdale Online, who had access to the emails and other information from the hearing.  A national newspaper (Mail on Sunday) has since published details of the holiday incident.

The NCC concluded that one member, Maureen Nicholl, with over 60 years membership of the party (joining at the age of 16) should be suspended for two years. The offence under rule 2A.8 was:

'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.'

The charges were;
'Charge No. 1
That she signed a letter sent to The Rochdale Observer and subsequently printed on 17th January 2009, which undermines both the Rochdale candidate and the campaign. (See copy of newspaper, pg 11)'

'Charge No. 2
Actions from charge 1 have damaged the CLP (Rochdale Constituency Labour Party) and the campaign work for the next general election.'
These were also the main charges brought against the other members.      

The letter was a calm response to an attack on Rochdale Labour Party made by Mr. Danczuk in a newspaper article printed in the Rochdale Observer on 3rd January 2009.

The last sentence of the letter sent by the members who were suspended or expelled reads;

'It is only fair to all parties, the public, Rochdale Labour Party and Mr. Danczuk, that these allegations are cleared up.'

Is the Labour Party now going to investigate these events, particularly with respect to the recent actions of the current Labour MP, Simon Danczuk?  

Mick Coats (21st, October 2015)

The Disloyalty of Simon Danczuk

by Les May

ON 17 January 2009 the Rochdale Observer printed a letter rebutting earlier comments by Simon Danczuk in the paper on 3 January 2009 that members of Rochdale Constituency Labour party were bandying false accusations and 'bullying'. 

Signed by seven long standing members it called for an inquiry into allegations that Mr Danczuk hit his partner Karen Burke (later Danczuk) while on holiday in Spain. A Mail on Sunday article of 11 July 2015, gives some background to the incident in question.  Irrespective of the truth of the central allegation the incident does not reflect well upon Mr Danczuk. 

IN September of 2009 those who signed the letter faced a disciplinary panel to answer charges they had brought the party into disrepute.  Mr Danczuk and the now Karen Burke were represented by regional Labour party executive Anna Hutchinson. 

This is a curious state of affairs because as we were led to believe in a Mail on Sunday article in July, that Anna Hutchinson had previously put pressure on both Karen's brother Steven who had contacted the Rochdale Labour Party to say that Mr Danczuk was not fit to be an MP, and upon her father Martin who had made a complaint to the chairman of the constituency Labour Party about the happenings in Spain.  Though Anna Hutchinson in the same Mail on Sunday article, did deny these allegations.

The outcome of the disciplinary panel was that five were expelled after also being accused of 'bullying' and the two people who signed the letter were suspended. So the going rate for bringing the 'party into disrepute' is suspension.  Or is it? 

In March of this year an interview given by Danczuk to Ashley Cowburn of the New Statesman was headed, 'Exclusive: Labour MP says the public think Ed Miliband is aloof and more of a toff than Cameron' and was a sustained attack on Labour policies and on Ed Miliband as leader.  Without a trace of irony Danczuk said, 'The public are fed up with career politicians.' 

Cowburn commented, 'This scathing criticism – 45 days before the general election, and less than two weeks before the beginning of the short campaign – will be an embarrassing blow for the Labour party. Not to mention a complete denunciation of Miliband’s biography and media strategy. Hardly welcome news for a party that was polling around 40 per cent in 2013 and are now neck and neck with the Tories in the polls.' 

In the Daily Mail of 23 March this interview had metamorphosed into, 'Ed Miliband is a "f***ing knob" who costs Labour votes, according to one of his own MPs. Mr Danczuk's bombshell remarks come just 45 days before the general election – and less than two weeks before the official campaign kicks off.' 

At this point Simon seemed to get cold feet and tried to undo the damage to his career if not to the Labour party, so the same day the Mirror had the headline 'Simon Danczuk:  I wasn't having a go when I called Ed Miliband a 'f***ing knob' and 'I want Ed Miliband in Downing Street.' 

This may have had more to do with the headline writer's paraphrasing than what Danczuk actually told them but the Morning Star was a bit more expansive saying 'Mr Danczuk subsequently backpedalled in a series of panicked tweets, saying the interview “does not fully reflect my views”.' 

He wrote:  'We all have off days. I’d had a very difficult day and was feeling emotional.'Asked whether Mr Danczuk would face disciplinary action, a Labour spokeswoman said:

'Simon Danczuk has made clear the interview does not reflect his views.' 

So whose the telling the porkies here?  Ashley Cowburn by writing it or Simon Danczuk for saying it and then denying it?

But these were Danczuk's views all along. Last November he was reported as one of two MPs who had called for Miliband to resign. And if we believe the Morning Star he was briefing anonymously against Miliband, something hinted at in a Manchester Evening News article from the same month.

The one thing all these have in common is that they get Simon Danczuk noticed. He gets a few more column inches of publicity. But in the minds of people like me they raise the nagging question, 'If you are a Labour MP just what do you have to do to bring the Labour Party into disrepute?' Clearly a lot more than if you are just one of the footsoldiers.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/party-stalwarts-left-facing-axe-929702  

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/whitewash-claims-as-party-expels-five-930407  

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/exclusive-labour-mp-says-public-think-ed-miliband-aloof-and-more-toff-cameron 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3007489/Ed-Miliband-f-ing-knob-costs-Labour-votes-country-blasts-one-MPs.html  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2565853/Ed-wrong-immigrants-weak-welfare-team-isnt-patch-Blairs-Labour-MPs-devastating-attack-Miliband.html 

http://www.sunnation.co.uk/simon-danczuk-ed-miliband-was-a-terrible-leader/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33976474

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/mp-simon-danczuk-says-labour-8078816

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-b635-Damaging-Danczuk-needs-to-shut-up,-say-Milibands-pals/

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/simon-danczuk-wasnt-having-go-5385595

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/north-east-analysis/analysis-news/plot-sack-ed-miliband-never-8109077

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/black-country-mp-ian-austin-8070481

http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/simon-danczuk-is-terrible-spinner.html 

Bury Unite's Ethical Stand

Struggling Against Surveillance & Blacklisting

FROM about 2005, the Bury Unite Commercial Branch became involved in a dispute with Bury Council when the T&G shop-steward at Bradley Fold Waste Disposal Depot, Joe Cleary, was sacked on the pretext of accepting a bribe for the removal of some trade waste:  Bury Council at that time, used a security officer to use a hand-held cam-corder to film a working team of Bury bin-men under the RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act).  The bribe which the sacked bin-men team were alleged to have accepted from an Asian shopkeeper was a bottle of Strawberry Volvic. 

In the end Bury MBC spent a large sum on legal costs fighting to dismiss the men and finally ended-up settling by paying a five-figure sum to Mr. Cleary.  The Bury branch of what is now Unite backed Joe Cleary throughout his fight with the Council, as did the Unite union officer Kathy Rutherford. 

I well remember talking to Kevin Coyne, the then North West regional officer of what is now Unite, and he encouraged me to continue our branch's struggle against surveillance.  He did say something of interest at the time when I told him that Bury Council was under Conservative control, he said 'Oh, that's good for us!' as it doesn't reflect badly on the Labour Party. 

Does party politics influence trade union activism at the top?  Are full time trade union functionaries less likely to oppose if a local Council is ruled by a Labour majority? 

Whatever the case this predilection for party politics didn't impact upon the moral integrity and ethics of the Bury Unite Branch.  After a militant shop steward such as Joe Cleary was dismissed using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, the Bury Unite branch put in a series of Freedom of Information requests to Bury MBC and critical reports followed in the Bury Times written by the journalist Dave Thomson, and another report in the Mail on Sunday.  Because of all the bad publicity arising from the Joe Cleary case it appears that Bury MBC is no longer using this type of crude covert surveillance.   

Because of this traumatic history of involvement in covert surveillance with Bury MBC, Bury Unite Commercial Branch has since taken to supporting the Manchester electricians in their own campaign against the covert surveillance with regard to the blacklist in the British building trade.   Bury Unite branch has done this through its affiliation to Tameside Trade Union Council.  Our latest involvement as a branch has been through the secretary's joint-authorship of the book 'Boys on the Blacklist',  and now the motion on ethical procurement presented to the North West Local Authority Regional Industrial Sector Committee (Risc) on the 5^th,  March 2015.   

Unfortunately, for some reason that has yet to be fully explained, the North West Local Authority Risc, under the distinguished chairmanship of Sidney Graves and Deputy Chair Nick Parnell, failed to be able to move the motion.   An investigation into what happened has now been set-up by the North West Finance & General Purpose Committee. 

It seems that in the real world that ethics and politics are not very comfortable companions.

Will Labour Suspend Mr Danczuk?

by Les May

If the story in the 'Mail on Sunday' about Simon Danczuk's 2008 holiday in Spain with now estranged wife Karen proves anything it is that since his arrival in Rochdale he has created at lot of enemies and some of them have finally caught up with him.


To many people in Rochdale these stories are not new.  They have been circulating as e-mails and as accounts on the World Wide Web for some years.  What is new is that the witnesses to both the fallout from whatever happened between the couple and the attempted 'cover up' by the Labour Party, have been prepared to go on record and make statements to the MoS about what they saw, heard and did.


My experience of putting questions to Mr Danczuk is that he shrugs them off and refuses to answer, and I have not doubt he will do the same with the MoS story. But there are two organisations which cannot afford to ignore it. The first is the Labour Party which will lose all credibility if it tries to treat this story as just another, 'Daily Mail hatchet job on Labour'.


If there is one thing everyone knows about acting leader Harriet Harman, (she of the pink van), it is that she is forever trumpeting Labour's support for 'women's issues'. Well here is her chance to prove it. At the very least Harriet Harman has to suspend Mr Danczuk temporarily until a new investigation into what happened between the couple in Spain and subsequently, which takes 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. If she feels reluctant to act upon what is after all as yet only an allegation, albeit a well supported one, she need look no further than Mr Danczuk's own record. 


A Huffington Post article of June 22nd this year said 'Labour MP Simon Danczuk has accused his party of failing to act “quickly and efficiently” after he urged Ed Miliband to remove Lord Janner last year after police revealed historic sex abuse allegations'.  As Leicestershire police were unable to confirm that they were investigating Janner with a view to bringing charges this did not happen. But it did not stop Mr Danczuk milking it for publicity.


Ms Harman also has to investigate, and make public, the actions of Anna Hutchinson, the North-West regional director of the Labour Party who contacted Martin Burke, Karen's father, after he made a complaint to the chairman of Rochdale constituency Labour party about the incident in Spain. If Mr Burke's claims are true, and I have no reason to doubt them, then Ms Hutchinson 'blackmailed' Mr Burke into dropping his complaint by threatening that his son Steven would be prosecuted for an offence falling under the Data Protection Act. This looks very much like an attempt at a 'cover up'.


Given that Mr Danczuk has made his name by claiming that the activities of Cyril Smith and others were 'covered up' by people in high places, there is a certain irony that the same sort of accusations are now being levelled at the Labour party. The second organisation is the Greater Manchester Police service.  The MoS article quotes Karen Danczuk's mother Sue as saying, ‘On the phone, she told me he’d attacked her.  Yet the day after she got home, she was going on about how it was lies.' As with Karen's father Martin I can see no reason to doubt these claims and this rapid change of story surely casts some doubt upon Mrs Danczuk's credibility as a witness.


Either Mr Danczuk did 'attack' her and she changed her story after she got home or she massively exaggerated to her family the nature of the 'argument' the couple had had.  Whatever happened it is difficult to explain why a woman with small children found herself at an airport that was closed for the night with little or no money and no tickets to get home.  In February Mrs Danczuk claimed she had been abused in the family home by an 'older family friend'.  By early March the claim had become that it was her older brother Michael who had 'raped her hundreds of times'.  Michael was subsequently arrested and has been bailed twice.  Two women who Michael had known in the past came forward to press further claims against him.  Whether they were prompted to do so by a third party is unknown. At some time in the not too distant future someone at GMP has the unenviable task of deciding whether charges will be brought against Michael against a background of doubt about whether Mrs Danczuk has proved to be an entirely reliable witness with regard to what really happened in Spain in 2008.


In the past I have been critical of what I call the 'Posh Women's Tendency' in the Labour party.  But on this occasion I hope they will show their mettle and press Harriet to suspend Mr Danczuk from the party. After all she showed no such inhibitions in calling for the BBC to sack Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson because she objected to a word he had used.


Les May http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3157459/Disturbing-questions-Simon-Danczuk-crusades-against-abuse
html http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/06/22/simon-danczuk-urged-ed-miliband-to-axe-janner_n_7639938.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/harriet-harman-calls-on-bbc-to-sack-jeremy-clarkson-9319032.html

Karen Danczuk Shown Door in Marriage Mess

AS things start to come out about the strange theatrical marriage of Mr. & Mrs. Danczuk, it is today reported in the Daily Mail that Simon Danczuk MP for Rochdale, has dismissed his wife, Karen, from her £20,000 a year job as secretary in his office. Over the weekend more stories in the dramatic life of the Danczuks emerged, with the historic evidence of what happened during a visit to Alicante before he was elected in 2010. Northern Voices has known for some time of the allegations of a violent rompus between the Simon Danczuk and the then Karen Burke in Alicante. Yesterday, The Mail on Sunday revealed disturbing new details of that event – and of contemporary statements about it drawn up for a secretive Labour Party inquiry. According to the The Mail on Sunday it is now alleged that although he was apparently provoked, Mr Danczuk not only abandoned but physically assaulted his partner while on holiday in Alicante. Mr Danczuk has always denied the row became violent, and that he assaulted Karen. Afterwards, while admitting that there had been a row they patched things up, 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’. Mr Danczuk declined to comment on the claims when contacted by MailOnline. He has not spoken of his separation since damning accusations that his wife tried to set him up in a honeytrap plot with a Liverpudlian lapdancer emerged yesterday. Steve Bennett, who lives near the couple's family home in Rochdale, told The Sunday Mirror that Karen wanted the 'stunning' woman to seduce her husband in a bar near his Westminster flat to give her an excuse to get out of their 'loveless' marriage.

John Gummer's daughter & Danczuk's wife!

'Our Daily Bread!' at Simon Danczuk's Deli 

Simon says:  'Bite on this bacon butty darling, and help my career!'

 

Careerism from 1990 to 2014

The significance of these two attention grabbing cases is that while John Gummer's 4-year-old daughter, Cordelia, below had the sense not to eat the burger on offer from her father in 1990; Karon Danczuk the wife of Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk in last Sunday's Mail on Sunday, had no hesitation in posing for the camera while stuffing a bacon butty into her gob in a way that the former MP for Rochdale, Cyril Smith, might well have admired.

1990: Gummer enlists daughter in BSE fight:

The government has again attempted to reassure the public that British beef is safe, despite growing fears over the cattle disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).

The Minister of Agriculture, John Gummer, below even invited newspapers and camera crews to photograph him trying to feed a beefburger to his four-year-old daughter, Cordelia, at an event in his Suffolk constituency. Although his daughter refused the burger, he took a large bite himself, saying it was 'absolutely delicious'.

The number of cases of BSE in cattle has shot up since the first case in 1986, and now stands at about 14,000, despite a government policy to slaughter all infected animals and prevent them getting into the food chain.

Fears have been mounting that the disease can jump species to cause the fatal human brain condition, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). The rising concern has led to 20 education authorities taking the decision to boycott beef products, taking beef off the menu in hundreds of schools across the country.