by Brian Bamford
ON the 5th, December Carl Faulkner, an independent analyst and investigator concerned about the decline of common decency in local political life, published a video skillfully outlining the attitude of most Rochdale councillors to the importance of democratic procedures in local politics. The video entitled 'Birds of a feather: Protecting the Guilty' * and commenting on the Rochdale full council meeting of Oct. 2018, that describes in detail how councillors of a Labour complexion gave spirited support to one of their brethren who is a self-confessed fraudster using postal ballots to vote more than once in the last municipal elections in Rochdale.
This artfully designed video superbly captures the depth to which Rochdale politics has sunk, with the now disgraced Council leader Allen Brett calling on the Council to let the culprit fraudster, councillor Faisal Rana, be 'allowed to continue his good work'. Councillor Brett was responding to a formal motion from the Tory leader of the opposition inviting Councillor Rana to 'just reflect on the positon that he's in and the position that he's put the Borough in'.
The Rochdale Labour councillors are by now well immune to controversy and scandal having endured pantomime politics for decades under the tutelage of such tacticians as Simon Danczuk, Richard Farnell, and now Allen Brett. Perhaps we ought to mention that at the time the tragedy of Cambridge House was in being as a going concern in the 1960s, Cyril Smith was a big noise in the Rochdale Labour Party.
The now disgraced Council leader Allen Brett is merely the ultimate conclusion of a rather bad bunch. Alongside him Sara Rowbotham cuts a curious figure as his deputy, it was she who rose to fame when Maxine Peak portrayed her in the 'Three Girls' dramatisation on TV. She is interesting because she has a following among a campaign group called 'Parents Against Grooming' or PAG.**
PAG supporters were out in force at the Council meeting at which Allen Brett defended the self-confessed fraud Faisal Rana. But they were clearly less interest on electoral swindling than on the exploits of a dead man in the last century at Cambridge House etc. Historical memory is not to be ignored, as we know that even today that Spaniards are anxious to unearth the bones of victims of General Franco in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. If the supporters of PAG want to explore and campaign for what they call the 'survivors' of Cyril Smith they are entitled to do so.
What is worrying is that in doing so, and pursuing a single issue, the PAG campaigners may be overlooking what is now under their own noses: that is that they themselves may be being used as 'useful idiots' by an ambitious politician to feather her own nest. I can't say this for certain, but their own heroine Sara Rowbotham has gone on record of making allegations against other Rochdale councillors, yet at the meeting PAG attended Sara had no qualms about joining the 'Roll of Shame' and backing the electoral fraud, Faisal Rana.
In this respect by getting carried away with the virtue signals and grandstanding of these half-baked ambitious politicians aren't you being a bit myopic? Before you start to 'Look Back in Anger', just consider that I was one of those folding RAP in the cellar on Spotland Road, when in May 1979 the allegations against Cyril Smith at Cambridge House were first about to be put into the public domain. Also, this Northern Voices Blog together with John Walker former joint editor of RAP; the Westminster Blogger, Paul Waugh; and the much lamented former Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, created the conditions for PAG to exist after Danczuk made his speech in Parliament in 2012 (see the excerpt from the Northern Voices Blog archive in November 2012 below).***
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* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFFKrkQaKqw&feature=youtu.be** See the video link in which Sara Rowbotham denounces Councillor Allen Brett entitled
'3 BOYS , A GIRL AND A GROOMER ROCHDALE COUNCIL PART 5':
PART 5 OF SURVIVORS MATTERS EXPLANATION AS TO WHY ROCHDALE BOROUGH COUNCIL HAVE REPEATEDLY MADE PROMISES TO THEM ONLY TO LEAD SURVIVORS ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE , WHILST ROCHDALE COUNCIL TRYING TO PORTRAY ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND CHANGE
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9gXUO6bK0qRQxCqmjKBenQPART 5 OF SURVIVORS MATTERS EXPLANATION AS TO WHY ROCHDALE BOROUGH COUNCIL HAVE REPEATEDLY MADE PROMISES TO THEM ONLY TO LEAD SURVIVORS ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE , WHILST ROCHDALE COUNCIL TRYING TO PORTRAY ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND CHANGE
*** Monday, 19 November 2012
It Was The Voices That Did It!
Cyril Smith - the Legend Falls
LAST WEEK, Northern Voices was party with others to the opening up of a story that has lied in the shadows for decades. We cannot claim all the credit as we did not do the original research into Cyril Smith: that was performed by the editors of the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) in May 1979, when they first published the story and were threatened by Cyril Smith's solicitors at the time with a 'gagging writ'. Private Eye and the New Statesman followed through with reports but the case against 'Smith the Man' was killed before it reached the mainstream media. Later attempts to resurrect the story also failed because those giving evidence against Sir Cyril Smith lacked the confidence to put their names in the public domain.
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LAST WEEK, Northern Voices was party with others to the opening up of a story that has lied in the shadows for decades. We cannot claim all the credit as we did not do the original research into Cyril Smith: that was performed by the editors of the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) in May 1979, when they first published the story and were threatened by Cyril Smith's solicitors at the time with a 'gagging writ'. Private Eye and the New Statesman followed through with reports but the case against 'Smith the Man' was killed before it reached the mainstream media. Later attempts to resurrect the story also failed because those giving evidence against Sir Cyril Smith lacked the confidence to put their names in the public domain.
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