LABOUR has been accused of lying in its campaign to get Meg Hillier re-elected.

A leaflet for the Hackney South and Shoreditch MP says: “Don’t let the Tory/Lib Dem Government rob people of their right to register to vote.”

Jack Tinley, Hillier’s rival in the Thursday 7 May 2015 elections for the seat, says: “This is frankly outrageous.

“To somehow imply that the current Government wants to take away people’s right to vote is a lie and bad for democracy.”

Tinley demands that Labour send “the truth” and an apology to everyone who has received the leaflet.

He adds: “Voters in Hackney deserve to know about Labour’s lies.”

Hillier comments that though she understands Tinley’s alarm, it was the Conservatives who had changed the rules for people to register to vote, which had resulted in many people being “left off the new register in Hackney”.

Labour, she said, was using doorstep canvassing, social media and other means to get people back on the register. Hackney council was trying to encourage people to vote.

Tinley responds that the voter-registration change had been made to give people more control over the process and increase the accuracy of the register.

It was “completely impossible to see how changes to improve the accuracy of the electoral register could ever be construed as robbing people of the right to register to vote”.

David Altheer 090415

* Full list of Hackney South and Shoreditch candidates

* Main pic: farcical scenes erupted in 2010 at Holy Trinity Church, top – at the time the clowns’ church – when voters missed out during the general election

* Backstory: Dalstoners urged not to vote; Couldn’t vote?

* Emboldened underscored words in most cases indicate a hyperlink. If a link does not work, it is probably because the particular site has not been maintained.