Danczuk Facing Expenses Probe

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has been rather reluctant of late to name MPs it is thinking of investigating for potential misuse of the expenses system. This has caused some disquiet in the press, if only because it denies hacks and pundits the chance to score a little more cheap copy and pass adverse comment. I mean, journalists wouldn’t fiddle their exes, would they?

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, Zelo Street’s sources are not so reticent in such matters, and so it can be revealed that IPSA are considering investigating Rochdale’s nominally Labour MP Simon Danczuk over around £10,000, this being the amount claimed in overtime payments for ex-wife Karen, whom he employed as a caseworker.

Kazza was dismissed from her role when the couple split up, but my information is that the disquiet had been building for some time. The so-called “Selfie Queen” did not, it seems, put nose to grindstone often, and was prone to coming and going at times that were convenient to Herself Personally Now. IPSA, I’m informed, did two spot checks after questions were asked how Kazza could run her deli and work for her husband. She wasn’t at his office when they called. On one of those occasions, the MP was present.

Matters became so fraught in the months leading up to May’s election, it seems, that Danczuk was forced to take the step of issuing Kazza with a final formal warning over her performance, or lack of it. You read that right: Simon Danczuk had to give his own wife a final warning. This contributed nothing at all to their marital harmony, but Danczuk concluded he had no alternative. The warning would have to be logged with IPSA.

He concluded, it is believed, that she was taking advantage. Yet she continued to be paid, something of which the people at IPSA might like to take note. Certainly, the notification of Danczuk’s payments from outside work, such as his regular columns in papers like the Sunday Sun and Mail On Sunday, improved after Kazza’s departure, and the MP stopped receiving routine bollockings over late advice.

It is also understood that Danczuk effectively secured Kazza her berth on Rochdale Council, and this it seems is something else he later regretted, considering that she had taken advantage of him, and others in the Labour Party. Why this should be is down to her performance as a councillor - or the perceived lack of it. It has long been rumoured that Kazza’s decision to step down was not wholly voluntary.

Danczuk is also believed to have concluded that Kazza’s lack of application as a councillor damaged him personally. And with Danczuk, it is ultimately all about him. Meanwhile, my sources suggest that if any money has to be paid back, the chances of Danczuk getting Kazza to stump up are not unadjacent to zero.

So he’ll need to do a lot more of those Sunday columns, then. What a trouper.