by Les May
THE
report in yesterday’s Evening Standard gossip column about Simon Danczuk’s
continuing suspension from the Labour party should be taken with a pinch of
salt. Again Simon is telling us about
his understanding what Labour party officials had decided. We had the same sort of story just after New
Year when he told the Manchester Evening News, the Daily Mirror and the
Rochdale Observer that 'Labour has "no choice" but to
accept him back into the party in the new year' and 'I’ve
met with chief whip Nick Brown and he says there’s no case to answer.'
Clearly the NEC members thought they did
have a choice.
It suits Danczuk to have someone write he’s
‘never been on good terms with the Corbyn
gang’. It
lets him pose as the innocent victim of a stitch up by Corbyn and his
supporters. And it lets him elevate
himself to the status of a man of ideas by being thought of as a ‘critic’.
Now it’s certainly true that there are
Corbyn supporters, probably quite a lot, who were happy to see him suspended
and would like to see him expelled from the party. But, and it’s an important ‘but’, it wasn’t
Corbyn who suspended him from the party it was the NEC and the events
surrounding the 2016 leadership contest to not suggest that august body is
packed out with Corbynites.
Far from Labour having ‘no choice’ but to
reinstate him the truth is that Labour had ‘no choice’ but to suspend him over
the sexting incident.
As I made very clear in my first comments
about this incident in Northern Voices on 4 January 2016 I did not regard it as
very shocking. Sleazy Yes! Stupid Yes!
Shocking No!
The whole thing seemed to me like an
extremely clumsy attempt at flirting by a lonely man with nothing better to do
with his time. But as one might expect
the media reports saw his antics in a different light. The text messages were
'vile'. The young woman, who it turned out was a ‘financial dominatrix’, had
become a 'young girl'.
Had Labour not suspended him it would
appear that the party was condoning the sort of behaviour towards someone who
was technically a ‘child’, which Danczuk had made his reputation
condemning. To save itself a mauling in
the ‘holier than thou’ tabloids Labour had to suspend him.
But casting Simon in the role ‘collateral
damage’ like this does not get him off the hook. The public expect people in public life to
have some sense of decency; some sense of how to behave. In spite of what Danczuk would have us
believe this is not about ‘morality’ or ones ‘moral’ view about what he gets up
to.
In my professional life had I been found to
be to have been exchanging sexually explicit texts with a young woman of 17,
serious questions would have been asked about my suitability to remain in my
post. The same questions about my
suitability to continue in my job would have been asked if I had kicked in a
glass door which shattered and shards of which fell on my ex-wife causing her
to have injuries needing more than 40 stitches.
Had I been found to be ‘bonking’ a young
woman half my age it would no doubt have drawn adverse comment. In which case I would have felt justified in
suggesting that the speaker should mind their own business. But, and it’s an
another important ‘but’, had I been found to have been using my office for the
assignation, I would have been sacked.
I would also have been sacked if I had
claimed £11,000 in expenses to which I had no entitlement. No one would have given me the benefit of the
doubt if I had tried to claim that it was all down to poor wording of the rules
about what could be claimed. I would
have been out, probably with my pension rights rescinded.
I expect Danczuk to be treated in the same
way that other people in responsible positions would be treated. And I am not alone.
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