Rochdale - Danczuk Loses It

[Update at end of post]

While most of the media is poring over local and Mayoral election results, and looking forward to next month’s General Election, events in and around Rochdale have taken another not-really-unexpected turn as now former MP Simon Danczuk, having been rumbled for being not unadjecent to the attempt to get former Manchester Mayor Tony Lloyd installed as Labour’s candidate, tries to distance himself from the idea.

As Zelo Street revealed yesterday, sources within the constituency had put it to me that having Lloyd representing Labour would have been “continuity Danczuk” under another name. And all day yesterday there was no word from Spanker or any of his pals in response. But from the get-go this morning, Danczuk has been wasting no time to let everyone know that he is suddenly very much against Lloyd’s candidacy.

So Spanker’s Twitter feed came alive early doors as he told “To be clear, Tony Lloyd isn't the right person. He now sees Parliament as a retirement home, rather than a place to represent #Rochdale … Tony Lloyd wants to be #Rochdale MP, but as Police Commissioner failed to hold GMP to account for grooming scandal”. Effectively, Danczuk achieved rather less than sod all on that front himself.

But do go on. “Tony Lloyd cares about #Rochdale? Why didn't he speak out like me? MP's ferocious attack on serving Chief Constable … What has Tony Lloyd, Police Commissioner, been doing: Manchester police fined £150,000 over lost victim interviews”. Danczuk’s idea, as I noted recently, was just to slag off GMP when they investigated claims in the book he co-authored with Matt Baker.

That was after the Danczuk and Baker book linked former Rochdale MP Cyril Smith to the now-defunct Knowl View residential school. The problem for Danczuk and his then side-kick was that some horrendous abuse had taken place at Knowl View, but Cyril Smith was not part of it. Smith’s chosen location for sexual misbehaviour was Cambridge House, something that was known by the late 1970s - well before Danczuk appeared.

So all that Spanker achieved through his book was to muddy the waters. GMP suggested after Spanker attacked them that if he had any evidence, he might like to pony it up. This echoes the claims about Smith made in the same book about an alleged traffic stop on the M1 Motorway in Northamptonshire, where the MP was supposedly in possession of a stash of child porn. Northants Police investigated. The claim was bogus.

Danczuk and Baker ponied up no evidence there, either. Rochdale Online has taken one look at the latest outburst and concluded that Spanker is “Busy burning bridges”. And one Zelo Street source has pointed out that if he wants to secure the best severance payment from his time as an MP, he will need to actually fight the seat again first. In other words, he’ll have to stump up his deposit and go down fighting - as in independent.

And lose he will. After all, as one Rochdale Labour member told Rochdale Online, “The man continues to be deluded. He genuinely thinks that people will vote for him, the reality is his stock in Rochdale is lower than a snake's belly”.

The wheels are finally coming off the Simon Danczuk wagon. And not before time.

[UPDATE 1830 hours: my sources in Rochdale now suggest that when Tony Lloyd's union, the GMB, got wind of the "Continuity Danczuk" suggestion, they were not happy bunnies.

So they sent word that Lloyd should keep his distance from Danczuk, Richard Farnell and the rest of that grouping.

Spanker heard about that and as a result HE was not a happy bunny, and hence the social media meltdown.

The next unknown is whether Danczuk will stand as an independent. Stay tuned]