Letter from Parliament - Simon Danczuk MP

Simon Danczuk MP welcomed Retail Ready People to Rochdale

This week should have seen Rochdale at the centre of national political debate, as BBC’s Question Time was scheduled to take place in our town. However, following the death of Lady Thatcher, the programme’s controllers decided to move the political debate programme to her former constituency of Finchley.

Lady Thatcher’s death has seen a huge amount of reflection on the momentous events of the 1980s that symbolised her premiership. As someone who grew up under her Government, it felt at the time like the north was under constant attack, but you have to respect the fact she won three General Elections.

As a keen student of politics, I make it my business to meet local politicians of yesteryear to put the challenges Rochdale faces into some historical context. This week I met with Michael English, who at 22 replaced Cyril Smith to become Rochdale’s youngest councillor in 1953 and served on the Council for 12 years. His view of Rochdale in the 1960s was that the town’s strength lay in its independence and strong Lancashire identity.

More than half a century later I’m not sure if we can still say the same and there are certainly lessons that can be learned from that time. Rochdale remains a proud Pennine town with a rich culture, but I’m not convinced we’re promoting this as well as we could or helping places like our town centres reflect this.

As part of Greater Manchester I do have concerns that we’ve sacrificed some of our identity to be part of a big, sprawling conurbation. I’m keen to try and reclaim our identity to redefine our town as different to other places and, wherever possible, I’d like to see the local authority, Rochdale Development Agency and other bodies do the same.

With a strong identity comes civic pride – and someone who’s starting to generate more of that in our town is Keith Hill at Rochdale AFC. On the back of two excellent wins, there are real signs of progress being made.

You don’t have to look very far either to see Rochdale talent performing at the highest level. Rickie Lambert at Southampton, Adam Le Fondre at Reading and Grant Holt at Norwich all played for Rochdale – and are all now doing the business in the Premiership. They are a great advert for Rochdale football club and it speaks volumes that Le Fondre recently told a national newspaper, “I cried when I left Rochdale. I felt so at home there.”