A former regional daily editor has shared his experience of being part of Jeremy Corbyn’s media team during his General Election campaign.

Steve Hoselitz, formerly of the South Wales Argus, worked in communications for the Labour leader during the campaign, after being recruited by Mr Corbyn’s deputy director of strategy and communications, former Argus journalist Steve Howell.

Steve, who edited the Argus between 1987 and 1994, described election night, which resulted in a hung parliament, as the “end of a political campaign like no other seen in Britain before”.

In a blog post reproduced by his old newspaper, he wrote that he had joined the Labour team around two months ago.

Steve added: “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…”