The old certainties about finding Labour votes in Labour places have long gone.
He said the Tories believed in "unforgiving markets" but Labour placed its faith in markets that contribute.
On Monday Labour placed an advertisement in the Financial Times with quotes from six business leaders who worried about leaving the European Union.
The night before we met, he was helping launch Labour Friends of the Forces, set up to "demonstrate the value Labour places on the defence community".
This confirms that Hackney is one of the most solidly Labour places in London or anywhere else, but the overall outcome raises some intriguing wider issues too.
In addition, in many Labour places an angry, oppositional party took votes away from Labour, but also from its traditional opponents (where Ukip came second, knocking Conservatives and/or Liberal Democrats into third).
Labour placed second and the Liberal Democrats trailed a distant third - the party has never achieved more than a 20% share in Stafford.
"Thousands of people working in cleaning, catering and retail earn the minimum wage and can't live in cities without housing benefit, but without their labour places like London would stop functioning altogether," she says.
During a visit to Lady Haig's Poppy Factory in Edinburgh, Clegg responded to recent polls that show Labour placing third in the popular vote: "I think, if Labour do come third in terms of the number of votes cast, then people would find it inexplicable that Gordon Brown himself could carry on as Prime Minister, which is what the old convention would dictate".
