Karen Danczuk MP? You’ve Been Had

Some people are well-known merely for being Themselves Personally Now. Others would rather like to be well-known for the same reason, but have difficulty making the grade, and so resort to desperate measures to push themselves into the public eye. One of the latter category is former MP’s wife and serial wannabe Karen Danczuk, and her latest exercise in self-publicity shows her, and the media establishment, at their most shameless.

Kazza has in the past suggested that she would like to become an MP, an idea that has been met with derision anywhere in the Rochdale area, where she was briefly a Labour councillor before, so the story goes, she was prevailed upon not to stand again so that someone who knew what they were doing could have a go. But that did not stop her, and her media pals, from recycling the idea last week.

First to take the bait were the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, who brought readers the allegedly exclusive headline “Double Danczuk In Commons? Karen Seeks Selection In Bury”. This dubious claim, backed up by “A source close to Karen”, told The Great Guido “Karen connects with people, she’s a poor girl done good, and she’s a local girl. She’s serious about getting selected”.

Yeah, right. But the hare was running, and so out came the Murdoch goons at the Sun to try and score some sales and clicks off it, asserting “SELFIE QUEEN Karen Danczuk is in the running to become the candidate for Bury North in the General Election … the mother of two  could join her estranged husband in the Commons if she was selected and won the seat”. The Fawkes blog is then quoted as if it were a genuine news source.

And if the Sun was chasing this dubious story, so was the Mail: “The mother-of-two, who is best known for posting provocative photos of her cleavage, has applied to become Labour’s candidate in the marginal seat of Bury North … If she is selected and wins she could join her estranged husband, the suspended Labour MP Simon Danczuk, in the Commons”. Was anyone bothering with a reality check? Like ask the local Labour party?

Well, no they weren’t, not even the Manchester Evening News, where the hacks should have known better. “If successful Ms Danczuk, who gained fame for posting revealing selfies on Twitter, would go up against sitting Conservative MP David Nuttall in the crucial marginal seat - which is considered to be a bellwether constituency” they told. Even the supposedly upmarket Sunday Times has been suckered.

“Miss Selfie flashes her political assets … Once known for her racy snaps, Karen Danczuk is out to convince Labour her traumatic past will make her a valuable MP” tells Laura Pullman’s piece. And they all wasted their time, as Kazza has now admitted: it seems the 2015 PPC for Bury North, James Frith, is being given first refusal to run for Labour. Kazza makes her excuses, she remains in the public eye, and the press gets used again.

When will the media establishment learn to ignore wannabes like Karen Danczuk? Anyone would think there was nothing to report in the election campaign so far.