Danczuk Anti-Semitic Smear Busted

As if Rochdale’s nominally Labour MP Simon Danczuk was not in enough trouble right now, what with the “sexting” of a 17 year old girl, his increasing dependency on the falling-over water, the £11,500 in expenses he’s having to pay back, the questions over whether his pal John Blundell was using the spare room at his London flat, and The Most Unfortunate Incident the other weekend, he has now ventured beyond the pale.

Danczuk has - unwisely - involved himself in a war of words with Mail On Sunday journalist David Rose, who recently spent some time in the Rochdale area standing up the story of the bust-up between the then future MP and his then partner Karen Burke, which ended up with her and a small child dumped at Alicante airport without the money to get home, and subsequently caused the ruckus of the “Rochdale Seven” Labour expulsions.

The exchange between MP and journalist came after Rose noted that Danczuk was trying to accuse local campaigner Paul Mitchell of peddling smears about him, while Mitchell’s story, concerning Danczuk’s friendship with the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) was factually 100% correct. “This is surreal. Yes, it's the same Simon Danczuk. Could someone have hacked his twitter account?” commented Rose.

Danczuk would have been best advised to say nothing, but then, pride comes before a fall, and back came Simple Simon: “Tell us all David, whether you had @PaulTMRetail paid for his help in setting up your interview with my first wife?” That has precisely nothing to do with the story about Danczuk’s Bangladesh connection. And there was more.

Rose, not surprisingly, seeing he now had Danczuk’s attention, and being a journalist by trade, enquired about the MP’s latest alleged relationship, the “sexting” scandal, “And why you speak in Dhaka at a BNP rally when that party's ally is the proscribed jihadist Jamaat i-Islami?” This matters, especially as Danczuk’s speech to that BNP gathering in Dhaka provoked something very close to a diplomatic incident.

There was no relevant response from Rochdale’s MP to those questions. Instead, he decided to accuse Rose of paying Mitchell, suggesting that this devalued the resulting story: “So that's a 'yes' you did pay him. More cheque book than investigative”. Danczuk has no evidence to back that up. And then it got worse - a lot worse.

After Rose pointed out that he did not interview Danczuk’s first wife Sonia Rossington when she made her serious allegations against the MP, Danczuk lost it, and lost it very badly: “I know that David. Tell us all if you're friends with any of Lord Janner's family?”

That’s bang out of order on one all too obvious count. David Rose is Jewish, as of course was Greville Janner. There you have it, plain and simple, a disgraceful and deliberate anti-Semitic smear being deployed as a desperate attempt to put one over on a journalist who clearly has the better of the exchange.

Simon Danczuk has once again ventured beyond the pale. Just how much more of this has to happen before the Labour Party expels him - for good?