Meg Hillier: fears for her seat

In her previous Hackney Gazette 'Talking Point' Meg Hillier said that the government's plans to equalize constituency sizes could lead, among other things, to the end of Hackney MPs (09.02.2010):

"If our population (Hackney's) shrinks a little we then a bi of the City, Tower Hamlets or Islington will be tacked on to Hackeny... or if boundaries start being drawn from outer London into the centre, we could see Hackney carved between the neighbouring constituencies.

Nick Clegg has already singled out Meg's constituency as a target - although the figures he used appear to have been out of date.

Meg Hillier forced to defend her seat as Clegg uses 10-year-old figures

Was Nick Clegg using 10-year-old data from Wikipedia when he stated the size of Hackney South's electorate in Parliament?

A terse comment from Meg Hillier arrived via Theyworkforyou.com email alert yesterday. At first glance it looked like the straightforward correction of an error made by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

Meg said: "On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that you are very keen that Members of the House should always be factually accurate. On Tuesday 22 June, in answer to questions, the Deputy Prime Minister cited my constituency and said that it had an electorate of 52,000. In fact, on 6 May the electorate was 72,920. I would hope that you, Mr Speaker, would remind Government members of the importance of being factually accurate, when they have all the resources of Government to enable them to quote accurate figures, not figures plucked from the tops of their heads."

She was responding to what Nick Clegg had said: "Clearly, in line with existing legislation dating back to 1986, it is right for us to continue to provide for more equal constituencies in this country. [Interruption.] Here in London, for instance, Hackney South and Shoreditch has an electorate of just 57,204, while a few miles down the road, on the other side of London, Croydon North has 22,615 more voters. Its electorate is more than a third larger. That cannot be right."

But Clegg wasn't plucking figures from the top of his head. Most likely he was using this Wikipedia page which also uses the 57,204 figure. The only other place where this figure appears dates it back to the year 2000: from Boundary Commission Report: "3.12 The constituency with the lowest 2000 electorate in London will be Hackney South and Shoreditch BC with 57,204 electors: this will be the second lowest electorate in England after that of Wirral West BC....."

May be Nick Clegg has it in for Meg after she told Labour councils to have a zero tolerance policy toward Lib Dem co-operation.

(It's late and I couldn't find where Meg's 72920 figure came from - maybe here somewhere)

Black voters deserting Diane: Lib Dems

Lib Dem Hackney North candidate Keith Angus claims that Clegg-o-mania is stealing black voters - specifically Afro-Caribbeans - away from Diane Abbott.

In a post today he wrote: "There has been a shift in sentiment along these lines for a while. But not like this. The most interesting shift I’ve noticed is among Afro-Caribbean people. It’s fair to say that Diane Abbott’s vote among the Afro-Caribbean community was strong. But that now seems to be falling away."

Hopefully Diane will provide her observations from the front line too.

Darren Caplan - the corrections...and dinner

Darren Caplan has pointed out an error in an earlier story: Darren Caplan on women's bodies (the corrections have been made and he has left a full comment after the post.)

He also telephoned to say he'd replied in the comments section. During the conversation he said that he may respond to the other story: Darren Caplan, Simon Nayyar...are these criticism's fair?

The story repeats claims from this story:Move over MPs expenses, there's a new scandal in town. (Incidently the same excerpts from the same article were published in the comments section of Luke's Blog on April 2.)

The criticism is that both Darren Caplan and Simon Nayyar work for lobbying firms that represent supermarkets Tesco and Asda respectively, but claim to support local businesses in their campaigns.

Caplan told Blood and Property that he did not work on the Tescos account and added that a number of prospective MPs come from this profession including Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

Blood and Property hopes he'll be able to answer a few more questions about what the job entails - whether standing in an election is just a good thing for a Lobbyist to have on his CV, or whether Hackney could benefit from an MP trained in the dark arts?

And while you wait, here's a 40 minute video debate with Darren Caplan: Question Dine in which he deals with questions on voting at 16 and immigration, all in a dinner party setting. I enjoyed the 15 minutes I watched.