Gloria De Piero, MP for somewhere

David Miliband has been so taken with the backing he received from Gloria De Piero MP that one of his supporters posted a lovely blog piece about her on his leadership campaign site.

It’s tough being a Labour Party member in a sea of blue and there is sometimes the suspicion we are used as fund-raising and support fodder for nearby marginals at the expense of developing our own support.

We therefore had mixed feelings when we were fortunate enough to arrange for Gloria De Piero, newly elected MP for Mansfield, to come to Chelmsford to support David Miliband’s campaign for the Labour leadership. A standing audience waited our honoured guest with some anticipation!

Gloria spoke passionately in favour of David, his love of the Labour Party, his personal “manifesto” and his policy ambitions.

Problem is Gloria is MP for Ashfield, not Mansfield. I admit Alan Meale (left), the real Mansfield MP, is a pretty fellow. But I don’t think there’s enough of a resemblance to merit the mistake.

Another Labour retirement?

Rumours are swirling around that another Labour MP in Nottingham will announce he is standing down at the election.

Nottingham East MP John Heppell – a Labour whip – is said to be strongly considering the move.

Heppell has been around in the Commons since 1992 when he won his seat from the Conservative incumbent.

If the rumours turn out to be true he will join a string of Labour MPs from Nottinghamshire that say they’ve had enough.

Nottingham South’s Alan Simpson, Sherwood’s Paddy Tipping and Ashfield’s Geoff Hoon are all calling it a day. Meanwhile Mansfield’s Alan Meale is also said to be considering retirement.

If Meale and Heppell do stand down then that’s five out of eight Labour MPs in the city and county who will be retiring.

Changing shape of midlands Labour

After seeing that three more Labour MPs announced they were standing down I thought I’d review the situation in my area.

When I say my area, I mean the areas of the newspapers that I write for – Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and north Staffordshire.

When I started my job two years ago there were 28 Labour MPs out of a total of 40.

Eight of those have announced they are standing down – Alan Simpson, Paddy Tipping, Bob Laxton, Mark Todd, Tom Levitt, Patricia Hewitt, David Taylor (who passed away recently) and Liz Blackman.

I strongly suspect a further two, Geoff Hoon and Alan Meale, may also stand down soon.

That makes ten, about a third of the original figure, which will be replaced.

Another group of six, which includes two ministers, are in seats that are wobbly to varying degrees.

With the weakest majority first, they are: Andy Reed (1,996), David Kidney (2121), Nick Palmer (2,296), Charlotte Atkins (2,438), Vernon Coaker (3,811) and Judy Mallaber (5,275).

If we say it is probable that those with a majority of less than 3,000 could lose their seat it would mean four more MPs being replaced.

From the original 28 Labour MPs half would be replaced, either by a new Labour candidate or an opposition MP.

Meale tips

Apparently Mansfield’s Labour MP has become something of a lucky charm in the House of Commons.

Alan Meale and two other members, Tony Cunningham and Tony Wright, own a horse called Theatre Bell.

By the end of November it had romped home in four of its last six races – filling the pockets of fluttering MPs.

The horse had previously lost 15 races in a row when stabled in Thirsk, but a move to a new stable turned everything around.

Where was this providential place? Sedgefield – the former constituency of Tony Blair. You couldn’t write it more ironically.