Rochdale Liberal Democrats question Simon Danczuk's expenses

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From Rochdale Online:

Rochdale Lib Dems have officially complained to Parliamentary Watchdog IPSA and Greater Manchester Police about the expenses claims of Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk.  

They have alleged a 'misuse of public funds' and called for a full investigation into Mr Danczuk claiming thousands of pounds under the Parliamentary living allowance scheme. 

Mr Danczuk claimed for four 'dependants', despite not seeing his two eldest children for years. 

Lib Dems have claimed this is an abuse of the system and asked Greater Manchester Police to investigate.

The website has the full text of the complaint.

More on Simon Danczuk and Sir Edward Garnier

Yesterday I blogged about Simon Danczuk's naming of Sir Edward Garnier as the former minister who warned him against mentioning the name of Leon Brittan to the Commons home affairs select committee.

In the course of an angry response to the Leicester Mercury, Sir Edward appears to have confirmed the truth of what Simon Danczuk said:

Sir Edward, one of the country’s leading defamation lawyers, and former solicitor general, told the Mercury: "Simon Danczuk’s remarks are beneath contempt as he ought to know. 

"He describes an encounter. It was a conversation. I spoke to him and he knows why. 

"Anyone who thinks my attitude on paedophilia is lukewarm is very much mistaken. 

"Simon Danczuk's values are all wrong. Taking lumps out of me doesn’t advance the interests of the victims."

Sir Edward said he defended Lord McAlpine when he was falsely accused of child abuse and he said he had prosecuted paedophiles. 

Sir Edward said he spoke to Mr Danczuk because he is a friend of Lord Brittan’s wife who was concerned about her husband's ill health at the time. 

Sir Edward said she had fears over the impact of the Rochdale MP naming her husband in the select committee meeting.

Simon Danczuk and Sir Edward Garnier

Back in July, after Simon Danczuk (the Labour MP for Rochdale who exposed Cyril Smith) appeared before the Commons home affairs select committee.

The following week a mysterious report appeared in the Telegraph:

A campaigning MP was warned not to challenge Lord Brittan, the former Home Secretary, about what he knew about an alleged Westminster paedophile ring and was told he could be responsible for the Conservative peer’s death. 

Simon Danczuk said a Conservative minister stepped in to warn him not to name Lord Brittan in a Parliamentary committee last week. 

Mr Danczuk said that members of the Home Affairs select committee received similar phone calls ahead of his appearance on Tuesday.

Today a sparsely attended backbench debate on historical child sex abuse was held in the House of Commons and it may have provided a solution to this mystery.

In the course of his speech in the debate, Danczuk said:

Earlier this year, I told the Home Affairs Committee that a dossier containing allegations about child abuse by politicians had been handed by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens to the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan. That revelation helped lead to the Wanless and Whittam review and to the establishment of the overarching inquiry, but not everybody was pleased with the idea that I might challenge Lord Brittan. 

The night before my appearance before the Committee, I had an encounter with the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). After the 10pm vote, he drew me to one side outside the Chamber and warned me to think very carefully about what I was going to say the following day. He told me that challenging Lord Brittan on child abuse would not be a wise move and that I might even be responsible for his death, as he was unwell. 

I understand that people are cautious about naming parliamentarians, but I think that people who might know about child abuse allegations should answer questions, whatever their position. We should not shy away from that.

Sir Edward Garnier (despite my best efforts) has been my MP here in Market Harborough since 1992.

Later. Sir Edward Garnier has replied via the Leicester Mercury.

Simon Danczuk on his appearance before the home affairs select committee

Danczuk writes in this morning's Guardian:

In advance of the home affairs select committee session on child abuse, which was trailed as an opportunity to discuss historic sex abuse involving politicians, pressure was applied to everyone not to bring up any living politicians. 

A senior Tory apprehended me inside parliament and warned me not to name a former cabinet minister. The matter had been put to bed years ago, he said, and if raised now it would probably kill the former minister. But he wasn't the only one applying pressure. Party whips, Lords, MPs and others were all involved in cajoling, arm-twisting and bullying committee members to stick to a carefully choreographed script.

As he goes on to say, since then the wheels have more or less fallen off the political establishment.

I have been blogging and tweeting about the issues Danczuk raised since the end of 2012, when I wrote: "This one will run and run." It is certainly running now.

There are dangers here. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what an inquiry should cover, and it could all  turn into a silly-season story, as happened in the case of Madeleine McCann. Then, the press collectively lost of all sense of reason and competed to bring us more and more lurid conspiracy theories without bothering to report the basic facts of the case.

But if the current outcry can right some injustices, bring some perpetrators and focus interest on the protection of children in public care, then it may do some good.

Perhaps my point of view is partly determined by living in Market Harborough, where the local children's home and exclusive prep school were once simultaneously rife with sexual abuse.

Anyway, you can also listen to Simon Danczuk and Matt Baker's appearance on The World This Weekend yesterday, when the spoke about the select committee hearing:

Just Cyril being Cyril?

I first heard of the allegations against Cyril Smith when I read them in Private Eye in 1979. The Eye had picked them up from the Rochdale Alternative Press (RAP - those were the days when any self-respecting town had an 'alternative' newspaper). Northern Voices reprinted the original RAP story in 2010.

My instinct has always been to assume that they were true, if only because I could not see why anyone would trouble to invent anything so tawdry - he "'told me to take my trousers down and hit me four or five times on my bare buttocks" - about someone who was then only a local politician.

Today Paul Waugh, who grew up in Rochdale himself, revived this story with further allegations, as did Simon Danczuk, the current MP for the town, in the Commons. In the current climate it was inevitable that someone would do so.

And when the alleagations did become public, the old Liberal Party's reaction was not exactly to deny them.

A quotation from 1979 - "It's not a very friendly gesture, publishing that. All he seems to have done is spank a few bare bottoms" - was attributed by Private Eye (at least in a piece following Smith's death in 2010) to David Steel. But it originates from the original RAP story, where it is attributed (one suspects more accurately) to Steel's press office.

Perhaps the Liberals and Cyril Smith are a bit like the BBC and Jimmy Savile. We had all heard the rumours, were not sure if they were true or what to do about them if they were. It was easier to believe the legend of Big Cyril and do nothing.

When Cyril Smith died I did my best to write an even-handed assessment of him. But these stories - if they are true, of course - do reinforce my view that local politicians who present themselves as Mr Rochdale (or anywhere else) and bigger than their party tend to be bullies and braggarts and are not to be trusted.

I also raise my eyebrows at David Steel's statement on Any Questions? last Friday: "I have never come across it [child sexual abuse] in all my years as an MP."