Fashionable Addicts & Political Aberations

The Two Simons:  Simon Danczuk & Simon Saunders

READERS of the Northern Voices' Blog might well notice the similarities between two pundits in the political sphere who occasionally appear on the NV BLOG.  The Right Hon. Simon Danczuk, the suspended Labour MP for Rochdale is a real regular who has kept us entertained for years during which he has gradually drifted off-the-rails to inadvertently become a major advertisement for the anarchist cause by simply undermining parliament through the sheer cheek of his expenses claims, high living at the public expense, general  philandering and blatant fornication, yet alongside Mr. Danczuk readers should not overlook another Simon:  Mr. Simon Saunders of upper-middle-class origins from Ipswich in Suffolk. 

While Simon Danczuk is fond of telling us about his humble origins as a member of 'the under-class' and the son of a single mother, born in Burnley.  Mr. Simon Saunders, on the other hand, has been well-brought-up by his happily married middle-class parents, and is much more what the English might call 'shy' about his identity, background and origins in East Anglia, he writes under the name 'Rob Ray' for the Morning Star occasionally pontificating on issues of the day and sometimes declaring his expertise on 'gaming'. 


But while Simon Danczuk is an 'unintended anarchist' with a lively libido, Mr. Saunders is, on the other hand, we are told, the genuine article:  formerly an editor of Freedom - the anarchist journal which was perhaps the oldest surviving political paper before with Simon's help it folded in 2014.  At present he is reputed to be the strong right-hand man for the manager of the Freedom Bookshop, Mr. Andy Meinke.  Mr. Saunders it seems, has now settled down and channelled his earlier demons of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) into a more constructive career, and has, according to his own mother in the link below 'grown into a hard working, well-balance young man (now 35-years-old) with an acute social conscience' or [as has his brother puts it] in the same article:  "found his tribe" with a handful of good friends'.  In the same article in the Ipswich Star, Simon Saunders describes how people with his condition (ADHD) 'constantly pick fights and almost never listen to what anyone is saying', and '[i]t's like being slightly drunk all the time, and not the singing happy drunk but the angry kind...  [t]he condition allows you almost no control over your emotions and nearly as little over your actions.'


We don't know if in September 2006, when the article was published in the Ipswich Star, that either Simon Saunders or his mother a writer, were paid for the publication of their story regarding him suffering from ADHD.  We do know the Ipswich Star at the time described him as a sub-editor now working for The Evening Star.  Some innocent working-class people like me, may consider ADHD as one of those complaints that afflicts a certain category of middle and upper-class person who wants to explain away bad behaviour; perhaps in the same way that the Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, is now explaining his addiction to alcohol and sex as a way of excusing his behaviour as a kind of unsavoury politician apparently ready to shag everything that moves across the face of the earth.  Wyndham Lewis, in the 1930s, described these kind of people as 'fashionable addicts'. 


Mr. Danczuk is making good money out of his bad behaviour by apparently getting paid to behave badly by various tabloid newspapers.  Mr. Saunders, who was involved in an attack on me at the Freedom Bookshop in June, is not getting paid like Danczuk, but he is on a good thing lounging about at Freedom in Whitechapel while apparently waiting for the building to be sold for an estimated value of £1.2 million. 


Not everyone are happy with the kind of people who hang about at Freedom Press.  Many of them like Andy Meinke who runs the bookshop, and Simon Saunders are new boys on the block, and some believe that their commitment to anarchism or any decent philosophy is slight to say the least.  Needless to say Mr. Saunders also went to a fee-paying school:  see link below.

http://www.ipswich.school/old-ipswichians/ 'Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder' www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/my_struggle_with_adhd_1_110117  
Or catch Simon Saunders' latest column on the Morning Star:  https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/search?q=Simon+saunders

TUC Conference Chief Attacks Rochdale MP

Child Sex Abuse, Simon Danczuk & 'Wrong Party' Claim

 YESTERDAY at the Conference of Trade Union Councils in Crewe, following a debate on Child Sex Abuse, the Chair Steve Gillan of the Prison Officers Association commented:

'I do have sympathy for anyone who has Simon Danczuk as an MP.  Because I think that he is in the wrong party.   Taking money from the Daily Mail, and that his wife is little better...' 

This remark, which was not challenged at the conference, would have met with sympathy among many delegates who would identify themselves on the radical wing of the Labour Party, and hostile to Tony Blair.  Nor did anyone contradict a contribution to the debate in which Mr. Danczuk was strongly attacked for using the campaign against child abuse to make political capital for himself and taking payments from the Daily Mail and its right-wing editor Paul Dacre.  At least one of the delegates was from Danczuk's own constituency party.   

A contribution from a delegate from Tameside TUC addressed the problem of  moral panic in relation to child abuse saying:  'We don't want more pious proposals on the issue of child abuse, we want proper research.'   

At the Trade's Council Conference Mr Danczuk stood accused of not employing proper research methods when doing his book on Cyril Smith 'Smile for the Camera', and of failing to answer his critics when asked to explain himself. 

Mr. Danczuk is supporting the alleged right-wing Blairite candidate Liz Kendall in the Labour leadership contest for which nominations close today.   

It was pointed out that Rochdale had been the centre of three separate sex abuse scandals:

• The Satanic Abuse Scandal in 1990:  for which social workers were blamed
• The Asian Grooming Scandal in 2012:  for which social workers were also blamed.
• The claims of a covered-up by Council Officers at Knowl View residential school for boys in 2014.

It was claimed that Simon Danczuk's 'misleading book' had delayed local investigations into child abuse in Rochdale.  It was also claimed that he was using the situation to prolong the agony for the victims in order to profit politically and financially.  The former local MP Geoffrey Dickens for Littleborough and Saddleworth was  also attacked for being a cheerleader in the Satanic Abuse scandal, that led to working-class children being separated from their families and, in some cases, placed in residential homes like Knowl View. 

The motion from Suffolk TUC on child abuse calling on the TUC to, among other things, 'strengthen legal ... support for whistle-blowers' was carried.  Another motion from South Yorkshire TUC entitled 'Rise of the Far Right & their manipulation of the Child Sexual Exploitation scandal' was also carried by the Conference.