Simon Danczuk received death threats during the selection process. The postal ballot got a 78% turnout and Danczuk received almost twice as many votes as the second-placed candidate. Seven members of Rochdale Labour Party who were accused of bringing the Labour party into disrepute by criticising his behaviour were expelled, or resigned, after a disciplinary hearing in September 2009. In the 2010 general election, Danczuk won 16,699 votes, unseating incumbent Liberal Democrat Paul Rowen, who received 15,810 as Conservative Mudasir Dean polled 8,305, despite the incident leading to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's "bigoted woman" remark having occurred in Rochdale. In May 2011,
Pre-election day events of the 2005 United Kingdom general election voters of the character of incompetent fictional hypnotist "Kenny Craig" from the television comedy "Little Britain". Another prominent feature of the pre-campaign was what journalists dubbed 'The Battle of Margaret's Shoulder', in which the Conservatives highlighted the case of Margaret Dixon, a pensioner whose shoulder operation had been cancelled seven times. She had written to the Health Secretary Dr. John Reid about her situation, but he had not replied, and so she looked to Michael Howard and the opposition party for help, who readily seized the opportunity to highlight a failing of the National Health Service. Soon after the matter