The Thursday Cyril: Eye Source is Cyril's Owned Paper

The quote that is used in the Private Eye piece about Cyril instructing his bankers to buy shares at the time comes from no less a source than ... The Rochdale Observer!

That estemmed organ didn't even bother to check their own archives on their master's voice before they regurgitate this supposed saint's lame defence over the last couple of weeks.

Rochdale Observer's article was headlined 'Sue 'em, says Cyril' and appeared on 14 August, 1982. Cyril was quoted in the paper saying this. " 'Em " in this case being the makers of the brilliant Yorkshire TV documentary 'Alice fight for life'. This was, Cyril claimed, damaging his beloved T&Ns reputation share value.

Not the killer asbestos dust doing that then? Those drawing attention to the problem. Instead of being "responsible". Cyril was going to buy shares to show his support think them undervalued. He could make a killing!

Very much at odds with the defence put forward by Cyril's apologist in chief. Dave Hennigan lied that Cyril's only motive was to secure the minimum number of shares needed to attend an AGM meeting.

Here's the Eye's HP Sauce item:

Inquisitive Lib Dems are wondering why the reputation of their shadow work and pensions minister, Paul Rowen, seems to matter far less to the party than that of his weightier forebear as MP for Rochdale, Sir Cyril Smith.
When the New Statesman revealed last month that Smith, 80, had been a shareholder in asbestos manufacturing giant, Turner & Newall - the company whose Rochdale plant was responsible for the death of thousands of his constituents - and that he had defended their products in 1981 by reading out a speech written for him by the firm, the party leapt to his defence.
Rowen's office issued a statement claiming that Smith "purchased the minimum amount of shares in T&N in order to speak at their AGM", that "people knew of the risks of working at the site" and Labour and Conservative MPs at the time agreed with the line that Cyril was taking".
These claims are nonsense. When Smith purchased his T&N shares in 1982 he boasted that they were a good investment: "The fall in value of T&N shares was without rhyme or reason - so much so that I have today instructed my bankers to purchase some for me," he said at the time.
And far from workers knowing of the dangers, Dr Tim Goffe, a T&N medical officer, wrote in a memo to director Harry Hardie in 1983: "I thought the bad old days of suppression of reports and secrecy on health and safety matters were over. The overall impression is of cover up."
As recently as 2 September this year Smith told the BBC's North West Tonight programme: "There is no danger [from] asbestos to the public at large" - despite the fact that every year more than 4,000 people still die from asbestos-related diseases in the UK.
Meanwhile Rowen, whose maiden speech in the Commons concerned T&N's victims, has compromised his creditable reputation for asbestos campaigning. Why? Perhaps some clue can be found in the records of the Electoral Commission which show that half the donations made to Rochdale Liberal Democrats originate from the home address of, er, Sir Cyril Smith.

Perhaps Cyril's bankers would come forward and corroborate the well padded parliamentarian's story? "No sign of malnourishment there" as my vet once said of the late lamented fat cat Bruce, who spookily was to die of cancer himself.

Cyril could produce a receipt or a bank statement perhaps? And the paperwork for the disposal of the same shares too? To substantiate Cyril's firm promise that no money was made from these transactions?

This process of discovery could stop the tongues wagging. Tongues that scurrilously suggest that Cyril was perhaps gifted his shares in the company. A company whose generosity brings a lump to Rochdalians throats ... and lungs and intestines. And generally brings them out in forever grateful lumps all over.

Tell me it ain't true! Surely Cyril's banker was more than a contemporaneous conceit as some will say? And he did mean a man in a smart hat on the high street rather than some mob bagman didn't he? Of course he did. Let's have it right.

If Cyril says his banker bought them he'll have all the paperwork won't he? And now he's been reminded how and why he obtained the damned things - to make a killing when the stock rose - he'll no doubt retract the more recent bullish assertions of himself and his crone Dave Drunkagain?