Simon Danczuk Bunks Off Work

Constituents of Rochdale’s nominally Labour MP Simon Danczuk may have been cheered last week to see him move a debate in Westminster Hall bringing attention to the difficulty some in the town have faced in recovering from the floods that hit the area just after Christmas. They may then have been doubly disappointed to find that this was not as it seemed - and that it was Danczuk’s only appearance in London last week.

The debate, as I observed at the time, was more about plugging one friendly business, and laying into BT, the latter being an attack line likely to find favour with the Murdoch press, from whom Danczuk scored a whopping £6,000 last month for his “exclusive” take on being lonely, drunk and horny somewhere near Alicante, these being his favoured excuses for “sexting” a 17 year old girl and then getting found out.

But it is his appearances in the Commons, or rather the lack of them, which might concern his constituents more. His voting record, which in this Parliament is already poor (around 61.5% of votes, described as “well below average among MPs”), is blank for last week. Compare this with Liz McInnes, who sits for the adjacent constituency of Heywood and Middleton, who was present for two votes last week, and manages to be there for more than 78% of them. And Ms McInnes has a shadow ministerial portfolio to cover.

So what happened to Danczuk last week? Ah well. He had to spend most of the week in Rochdale looking after his two youngest children - because now ex-wife Karen has been given yet another chance to make herself famous by survival TV man Bear Grylls. As the Mail told, “Next month the 32-year-old, who gained notoriety for posting selfies to her followers on Twitter showing ample expanses of her cleavage, will take part in a special episode of Grylls’s The Island for charity”. And there’s more.

“Quite how she will cope on the show, which requires participants to survive in a remote location with just a few basic tools, and no access to a camera for selfies, remains to be seen … A Channel 4 spokesman last night refused to confirm her involvement but did not deny Ms Danczuk would be taking part … He added that celebrities involved in the show would not be paid and would be surviving as they do on the original The Island series”.

The spokesman might have added that, if the story is true, at least one of those taking part is not really a celebrity. But, as Clive James might have said, I digress. Kazza’s absence means that her ex has to bunk off his Commons duties. What his constituents will make of that, on top of his apparent profiting from the “sexting” sleaze, is unclear.

So when Kazza pops up in the Sun and readers are told “'I do feel completely duped... But I'll never give up on Simon', says Karen Danczuk … The selfie queen reveals why she's standing by her ex after yet another scandal”, you have a clearer idea why she might be “standing by her ex”. Not too sure what it’s going to do for his already shaky relationship with his party and his constituents, mind.

Because for more of those constituents, it’s just another reason why he should go.