Simon Danczuk Expenses Hypocrisy

As the right-wing press tries its best to stick its bugle into the Labour leadership contest, the Sun’s most useful idiot Simon Danczuk, the self-promoting and nominally Labour MP who represents part of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale and participates in London-centric activities like supping with the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, has been playing the expenses card.

Behold the representatives of Themselves Personally Now

This is in order for him to pass adverse comment on his fellow Labour MP Andy Burnham, whose presence scares the Murdoch faithful shitless, not least because he stood with the memory of the 96 and justice, which has made many on Merseyside yet more determined not to have anything to do with Creepy Uncle Rupe’s trashy rag. Danczuk may not be aware that he is being used. He may also not be aware he is batting on a sticky track.

When Danczuk Tweeted “Please let me know what you think of this part of The Sun's editorial today”, he included a screen shot of an editorial that began “Nothing says ‘more of the same’ clearer than Andy Burnham’s £17,000 a year claim for rent from the taxpayer”. So it has to be assumed that he subscribes to the paper’s line of attack - suggesting that there is something less than ideal about Burnham’s expense claims.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, on the subject of expenses Simon Danczuk has no room to call out anyone. For someone who is a back-bench MP, his claims have outdone Burnham’s comprehensively, which is quite an achievement, considering that the MP for Leigh has been on the opposition front bench since Labour was defeated in 2010. Take the 2011-12 year, for example.

Here, Danczuk’s claims came in at over £1,000 more than Burnham’s. The Manchester Evening News also noted that “Mr Danczuk's wife Karen is a case worker for him on a wage of between £25,000 and £29,999”. One wonders how she managed to fit it all in, what with being a councillor and businesswoman as well. And Danczuk’s accommodation claims were almost £9,000 greater than Burnham’s.

It gets worse: for 2013-14, the total claimed by Danczuk was more than £25,500 greater than that claimed by Burnham. He is still employing wife Karen as a caseworker. And his accommodation claims were over £8,000 greater than Burnham’s. Is there an explanation? “Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk has cited a high casework load and having a young family as reasons for claiming almost £200,000 in Parliamentary expenses last year”.

But front bench spokesmen will inevitably have higher casework loads - yet Andy Burnham’s claims are consistently lower than Danczuk’s. Yet, despite his inhabiting an increasingly draughty glasshouse, the Rochdale MP is prepared to sit in judgment on someone who appears to give the taxpayer rather better value for money. Small wonder he does the bidding of the Sun - they’ve got the clown over a barrel.

Simon Danczuk, you’re not only a figure of fun, but a stinking hypocrite to boot.