Todd Keith Barclay (born 8 June 1990) is a former New Zealand politician of the National Party. He was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for

Clutha-Southland Clutha-Southland was a parliamentary constituency returning one member to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The last MP for Clutha Southland was Hamish Walker of the National Party. He held the seat for one term, being elected at the ...

at the 2014 general election. In 2017, Barclay resigned from parliament in disgrace after a scandal involving secret recordings he made.

Early life

Barclay was born in 1990 in Dipton, New Zealand, Dipton, where his parents Maree and Paul Barclay operated the

Four Square Four square is a team sport played among two teams with two players each on a square court divided into four quadrants: A, B, C, and D (usually numbers 3, 4, 2, and 1, respectively, depending on the court.) The square that a player gets to bef ...

supermarket. The family moved to

Gore Gore may refer to: Places Australia * Gore, Queensland * Gore Creek (New South Wales) * Gore Island (Queensland) Canada * Gore, Nova Scotia, a rural community * Gore, Quebec, a township municipality * Gore Bay, Ontario, a township on Manitouli ...

, where Barclay attended

Gore High School Gore High School is one of two secondary schools in Gore, New Zealand, the other being St Peter's College, Gore. It is located on Coutts Road in the west of Gore. Notable staff *Johnny Borland – high jumper, athletics official *George Jobbern ...

, before graduating from

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well know ...

with a

Bachelor of Commerce A Bachelor of Commerce (abbreviated BComm or BCom; also, ''baccalaureates commercii'') is an undergraduate degree in business, usually awarded in Canada, Australia, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ireland, New Zealand, Ghana, South Africa, Myanmar, ...

in Commercial Law. Prior to his election, Barclay worked at Parliament for

Bill English Sir Simon William English (born 30 December 1961) is a New Zealand former National Party politician who served as the 39th prime minister of New Zealand from 2016 to 2017 and as the 17th deputy prime minister of New Zealand and minister of f ...

(the MP he later replaced),

Gerry Brownlee Gerard Anthony Brownlee (born 4 February 1956) is a New Zealand politician of the New Zealand National Party. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1996, was Leader of the House, Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and Minister of ...

and

Hekia Parata Patricia Hekia Parata (born 1 November 1958) is a former New Zealand politician and former member of the New Zealand House of Representatives, having been elected to parliament in the 2008 general election as a member of the New Zealand Nationa ...

before moving to

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

and working for Philip Morris. Barclay has insisted that with regards to working for a tobacco company, his ethics are strong: "I don't smoke, I don't encourage smoking".

Political career

Barclay won the election by a significant margin to

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Liz Craig Elizabeth Dorothy Craig (born 1967) is a New Zealand politician and Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives for the Labour Party. As a public health physician, she has become known for her research work on child poverty. Early life ...

, obtaining nearly 64% of the candidate votes. Barclay was the first New Zealand MP to be born in the 1990s and at the time of his election, at age 24 he was the youngest MP in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

. On 10 April 2015 Barclay featured in news media for criticising supporters of current affairs television show ''

Campbell Live ''Campbell Live'' is a half-hour-long New Zealand current affairs programme that aired at 7pm (following 3 News) on TV3 and was hosted by John Campbell. ''Campbell Live'' conducted interviews of various notable personalities, including Al Go ...

'' which had been threatened with cancellation. He subsequently deleted his

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

comment. In November 2016, media reports indicated that Queenstown resident Simon Flood intended to challenge Barclay for selection as the National candidate for Clutha-Southland at the 2017 election. At a party meeting on 21 December 2016 to select the candidate for the Clutha-Southland electorate in 2017, Barclay won the selection over challenger Simon Flood.

Clandestine recording scandal

On 9 February 2016, Glenys Dickson, a senior electorate agent for Barclay, resigned because of an "employment problem" between the two. Dickson, originally the electorate agent for Bill English from 1998 to 2014, became Barclay's agent in 2014 after he replaced Bill English as the MP for Clutha-Southland. The circumstances leading to her resignation were described as confidential. Later that month Stuart Davie, the Clutha-Southland chairman, became the third resignation of Barclay's staff in 2016, Barbara Swan being the first. Davie claimed it was "untenable" to stay on at present. On 21 June 2017, after revelations that Barclay had made clandestine recordings of staff members he suspected of being critical of him, Barclay announced that he would not stand for re-election. Secretly recording a conversation that you are not party to is a crime in New Zealand. He subsequently left New Zealand and moved to London, later moving to Sydney.

References

, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Barclay, Todd Living people People educated at Gore High School New Zealand National Party MPs Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives 1990 births Victoria University of Wellington alumni New Zealand MPs for South Island electorates People from Dipton, New Zealand 21st-century New Zealand politicians