Simon Danczuk Banana Hypocrisy

Regular visitors to Zelo Street may recall the own goal scored by Rochdale’s nominally Labour MP Simon Danczuk when he put the boot in on Leigh MP Andy Burnham on behalf of the Murdoch Sun, suggesting that Burnham’s expenses claims may have been excessive or improper. What may not have been widely known at the time was that Danczuk has significant previous for this kind of thing.

In the run-up to the 2010 General Election, Rochdale’s then MP, Lib Dem Paul Rowen, was ridiculed by Danczuk and his team over an apparently trivial expense claim - for a banana. The offending claim had been submitted by an intern as part of their lunch, without Rowen’s knowledge, but, all being fair in love and war, was duly seized upon by his opponents as a sign of greediness and being out of touch.

After all, this perfectly fitted the meme being promoted by Danczuk and his then sidekick Matt Baker that Rowen was “milking” the expense régime, the inference from their propaganda being that Danczuk would not do such a thing. And so began a campaign of borderline harassment of Rochdale’s Lib Dems by a small number of people dressed as bananas, as the photos in this post demonstrate.

Remarkably, given the fallings-out more recently, one of those persuaded to make a total prat of themselves was Michael Burke, brother of Danczuk’s now-estranged wife Karen, who can clearly be seen in one of the photos dressed in a comedy banana suit and carrying a placard proclaiming “Paul Rowen Is Bananas”. The Banana campaign kicked off at the Broadfield Park Hotel outside Rochdale.

They then gravitated to Rowen’s constituency office on Drake Street before finishing off in the town centre where they handed out leaflets - leaflets intended to trash the Lib Dems, and thereby benefit Danczuk’s campaign. But what of the reality of the current MP’s expense régime? Ah well. As I’ve shown previously, Danczuk is adept at kicking others, while not letting on that his own claims are not insignificant.

His snark at Burnham over rent claims was bunk: in 2011-12, for example, his total expense claim came in at £1,000 more than Burnham, and his accommodation claim exceeded that of the Leigh MP by £9,000. Fast forward to 2013-14, and Danczuk’s total expense claim exceeded Burnham’s by £25,500, with the accommodation element £8,000 greater. And at that time he was employing Kazza as a “caseworker”.

That was for an annual amount between £25,000 and £29,999. He has since dispensed with her services, but there appears to have been no sign of complaints that his casework is suffering; indeed, Danczuk seems to be getting better at things like registering his payments for extra-Parliamentary activity (like using the Mail On Sunday to slag off his own party leadership). In any case, he has no room to call out anyone on expenses.

Indeed, anyone believing the Danczuk smears really would be, well, bananas.