Danczuk: I've Been Drinking A Bit Too Much

Labour MP Simon Danczuk has stepped back from his child abuse campaign work, saying it made him depressed and drove him to drink.

Mr Danczuk has played a leading role in exposing the allegations against the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith but said disclosing harrowing details about abused children had led him to seek help.

It had made him aggressive, he said, and he was "in no doubt" it had played a significant part in the recent collapse of his marriage.

He added that parliament was a "lonely place" where MPs were expected to be "tough".

The Rochdale MP said: "I would say I have been suffering from depression to the point where I have decided to seek help for that.

"I was getting angry at stuff that I shouldn't be getting angry at, fairly mundane things.

"I was getting aggressive - not violently aggressive - but just getting angry about things.

"Perhaps drinking a bit too much, a full bottle of wine of an evening, and especially on Fridays when I would hear a lot and meet with a number of the victims. At times suicidal thoughts as well.

"It's not been really bad, but thinking that it is quite a lonely place."

It comes as Mr Danczuk and his estranged wife Karen have been playing out their difficulties on social media with a number of unpleasant tweeted allegations.

After news they were separating broke, he suggested in a post that she was having an affair with her fitness trainer and she in turn suggested he was an alcoholic using "#alcoholic" in a post.

Mrs Danczuk, the self-appointed Queen of the Selfie, who has amassed more than 61,000 Twitter follows by posting revealing pictures of herself, has strongly denied having a relationship with anyone else.

He told Radio 4's World At One: "I think it took its toll on our marriage, there is no doubt about that.

"I was struggling to sleep at night. Some nights I might get four hours sleep, so you're waking up and you're not in the best of moods.

"On a practical level, Karen would say why don't we not talk about this tonight, can we have a night off talking about child sexual abuse.

"Because I would be coming home some nights wanting to download some of what I had heard.

"Not everyone wants to listen to it, do they, quite understandably. No doubt that it has had an impact."

Mr Danczuk's admission sparked a number of plaudits on social media for his honesty and bravery in speaking so candidly about mental health problems.

His admission follows the death of Charles Kennedy, the former Liberal Democrat leader who lost his battle with alcoholism last month.

His death drew attention to the problems of the Westminster culture, its late nights and the length of time MPs go without seeing their families.