Simon Danczuk and Katie Hopkins continue their race row

Simon Danczuk

Katie Hopkins and Simon Danczuk were interviewed on LBC Radio following Mr Danczuk's decision to report the outspoken Sun columnist and businesswoman to the police for possible race hate crimes.

Mr Danczuk has accused Ms Hopkins of equating men of Pakistani origin with child abusers and said she is encouraging a climate of intolerance following a vitriolic row on social media.

Ms Hopkins said she is not asserting that all men of Pakistani origin are "culpable" but that in flying the Pakistani flag above Rochdale Town Hall [on Pakistan Day, 23 March], unnecessary tension was being created.

She stood by her comments saying: "For me, in somewhere like Rochdale, you can’t raise a Pakistani flag and talk about community cohesion in the same sentence."

"If we look at why someone didn’t call the police earlier when our white girls were being attacked by these gentlemen, if someone had called the police earlier then that would have been a good thing wouldn’t it?"

Mr Danczuk said Ms Hopkins is stirring hatred in Rochdale and undoing three years of hard work by the Council, the Police and others, including himself, who faced up to the grooming issue. He added that as a result of her tweets, the North West Infidels are organising to march on Rochdale and that he has received death threats.

Ms Hopkins accused Mr Danczuk of reporting her to the Police to deflect attention from him being "caught watching porn" and because he has a wafer thin majority and "needs the Pakistani vote".

Mr Danczuk dismissed that view as "nonsense". He said her tweets were incendiary and she whipped up hate.

He also revealed he has seen the police today and will do so again tomorrow and expects they will decide Ms Hopkins has a case to answer and pass her file to the CPS.

Ms Hopkins sounded unconcerned and said she laughed when she heard Mr Danczuk had reported her to the police. She said she will stand up herself and "defend the right of British people to have the Union flag flying". She added that Mr Danczuk is "wasting police time".

Mr Danczuk explained that Rochdale already flies the Union flag and the St George flag above Rochdale Town Hall.