Simon Danczuk - BT Bashing Crawler

Rochdale’s nominally Labour MP Simon Danczuk appeared to show some concern for his long-suffering constituents, as he moved yesterday afternoon’s debate in Westminster Hall, on “Communications Infrastructure and Flooding in the North West”. Here was a politician drawing attention to the needs of his electorate, addressing their concerns, and seeking answers. Or so it might have appeared at the outset.

Sadly, though, it soon became clear that this was merely a platform for Danczuk to continue his attack on BT, which, as I’ve previously noted, is also a tactic employed by the Murdoch press, which by the most fortunate of coincidences serves the interests of the wider Murdoch empire, for which BT is a competitor whose competition they would rather do without, especially when it comes to Sky and sports.

Danczuk’s line of attack was soon evident: “Held debate in Parliament today on failure of BT to fix problems after flooding”. It was all about knocking BT. On one occasion he did refer to telecoms providers more generally, but then it was back to just the one provider. To no surprise, there were many outside Westminster Hall who brought up the inconvenient fact that he had absented himself the night Rochdale flooded.

Despite much of the town being inundated with water, he went off on a night out elsewhere. And his “case study” for the BT attack also came in for criticism: “My debate in Parliament today talked of failure by BT Openreach to reconnect businesses after floods & used @LolaAshleighfl1 as case study”. That’s the same Twitter handle as “‘@LolaAshleighfl1: Happy 9th Birthday party Lola, great party’ Happy Birthday Lola! x”.

Was this some personal friend that he was championing, rather than a business selected at random? We can be more certain that it was, after ex-wife Karen Tweeted before the split “VERY disappointed that Lynn Brossnon has been picked to replace me. @lolaashleigh1 is a young hard working mum in touch with community!” That was about her replacement as a Labour councillor in Rochdale.

So that looks like more BT bashing, combined with crawling to the Murdoch press, together with giving a pal a mention in his debate. But on he went, pretending to be A Proper Labour MP, telling “Read my latest blog on the Trade Union Bill and why our unions face a fight to stay relevant”, and ending the Tweet with the hashtag #HeartUnions.

Firey Fairy wasn’t at all happy about that: “Yet he flatly refused to support local Firefighters when they were striking over pension cuts … As I said when Firefighters begged him here to support by signing the EDM Danczuk repeatedly refused”. Support for the Trades Union movement is not something that you can pretend, or bluff your way through. It means showing support even when it might not be to the press’ liking.

Simon Danczuk did his best yesterday to pretend that he was a real man of the people. It didn’t work, people saw through it, and he will have to do a lot better in future.