There is no doubt the election result took many by surprise. Former Argus editor STEVE HOSELITZ gives his personal account of being involved with the Corbyn campaign

“IT WAS 11 0’clock at night but it was not really starting to quieten down at all.

Jeremy Corbyn had just left his last campaign rally at the Union Chapel, Islington, in the heart of London. The chanting, Oh! Jeremy Corbyn, was not just echoing inside.

Outside on the street, too, the supporters sang. All extremely good natured - police holding back crowds to let the traffic creep past, car horns tooting in approval. It could have been the return of a cup winning football club, but it wasn’t.

It was the end of a political campaign like no other seen in Britain before. It’s true, the younger voters were inspired. Their enthusiasm exploded on social media. But it was not just younger voters.

Right across the age range voters were realising that there was a huge gulf between what much of the media had been saying for two years and what they experienced for themselves.

For many it was the Labour manifesto which was the turning point; for others the relentlessly good-natured, honest, open campaign of a man they’d been misled to believe was the devil incarnate.

I’ve been a tiny bit player in the process, working in the communications team of the Leader of the Opposition.

Seven weeks ago I started work just as the election was called. My friend and former Argus journalist Steve Howell had been appointed deputy director of strategy and communications a couple of months earlier and I’d volunteered my services then. The phone rang: there was a need for someone to do some background work. Could I come to London until just after the election? I didn’t need asking twice…

My work has been fascinating and taken me into new areas. I’ve never done ‘politics’ before. But working with the current Leader of the Opposition’s communicators is not at all like the Svengali spin-doctor portrayals of TV series and many political memoirs. Honest, decent, truthful is more like it: not the qualities you might first think of when imagining the cut and thrust of the 21st Century political scene.

I’m not the only new face in the team… several of us joined for the period of the election. And what is so rewarding is the way that we all gelled. No training sessions, team talks or codes of conduct.

Somehow, without any rigid or formal rules, we just worked together seamlessly and co-operatively. When there was an urgent task someone with the necessary skills just did it.

The hours were long and flexible, but no one counted. There was actually only one thing that we were counting and that was the Labour votes. We blinked in semi-disbelief when the exit poll was announced. But as the night wore on we grew more confident.

Now as the Leader of the Opposition gets back to work the long-standing members of the team sashay back into their previous roles, unostentatiously but perhaps with a little extra confidence. For me, it’s ‘job done’. Back home to Monmouthshire: a former newspaper editor with a whole memory bank of new, amazing experiences to reflect on at leisure…”

© Steve Hoselitz (steve@hoselitz.com)