“Would you like to meet Jeremy Corbyn? He’s on your street.”

The nice man in a jumper at the door on this beautifully sunny Sunday, three weeks before the general election and a few hours before Arsenal-Manchester United was due to kick off down the road, didn’t appear to be joking.

Since I’d been trying, and failing, to get an interview with the phenomenon that was the Labour leader for several months (to be fair, ever since The New European ran a woefully misjudged cover proclaiming Corbyn “Labour’s Lost Leader” we were somewhat dead to them), I said ok. Yes please. Our Sunday family stroll to Clissold Park would have to wait.

I closed the door and told the kids to start tidying up the jumble sale’s worth of shoes, footballs and coats littering our Victorian terrace hallway. Then I stepped outside and peered down the street, past the hedge. Nothing.

“Must be a wind-up,” I told my wife. “Street’s completely empty. No hacks or camera crews or nothing. There’d be a busload of journalists with him if he was really here. Trust me.”

Then came the knock.

“Hello. My name’s Jeremy Corbyn.”

He was on his own, wearing a blue bomber jacket, blue shirt, blue chinos and a pair of comfy-looking brown leather shoes. He looked like a superannuated postman. Very little to suggest this was the stuff of GQ covers.

Read more: GQ Editor Dylan Jones on why Jeremy Corbyn is on the cover

Unsure of etiquette, we kept him on the doorstep. He stayed there for a full 20 minutes.

My wife tackled him about tech investment into the UK, which he seemed to confuse with an argument around the gig economy. I then introduced myself as the editor of The New European.

“Oh! I didn’t know you lived here,” he said.

“Why would you?” I replied. And he shrugged and smiled. He has a ready smile. Much more human in the flesh, and not a trace of swivel-eye.

And he listens. This was what struck me most and left an impression on me long after he’d left. Here he was; the leader of the Labour Party, at that time facing what the polls were predicting to be a rout. And instead of taking to the trail, with the politico circus in his wake, looking for a soundbite headline for that night’s telly, he was on the the doorstep in his own constituency, actually listening.

He asked me what I thought he should do about Brexit.

I told him he should at least make Labour’s position clear, so people knew what they stood for, instead of this deliberate opaqueness.

“Tell people it’s ok to change their minds,” I said. “If it looks like it’s going to be a disaster for the country, tell them there’s a way back from the brink. Make Labour the party for pragmatism over dogmatism.”

“But how do I explain that to all our contituents who really do want Brexit?” he asked. Neither of us had a ready answer to that one.

He was in no hurry, but my three-year-old Oscar was. He hadn’t got his trainers on for a park kickaround only to be stood listening to his mum talking to an old bloke about the gig economy.

“Can we have a selfie?” my daughter asked.

“Sure,” he replied, genuinely beaming, in a “thought-you’d-never-ask” kind of way.

We handed my phone to the nice man in a jumper who had, by now, reappeared. I gave Corbyn a copy of The New European to hold.

“But that might make it look like I was endorsing your newspaper,” he said.

“Exactly!” I said. He politely folded it and held it almost out of sight by his side, while the photos were taken.

“What you up to for the rest of the day?” I asked.

“Oh. Hoping to go and see the game with my son. But he’s got the tickets and I can’t get hold of him.”

“Write for the paper, will you?”

“Oh yes. I will,” he promised. I’m still waiting, though to be fair our cover’s don’t carry quite the same cachet as GQ’s.

“Ok then. All the best, Jeremy,” I said, meaning it. Then he wandered off and I shut the door.

Twenty minutes later, we stepped outside for our walk, and there he was - still there, across the road, talking to a rather bemused looking Deliveroo moped driver.

We gave each other a wave.

“Good luck against the Mancs,” I said.

“Thanks. We’ll need it,” he replied.

And I watched him go, surprised to find myself staring after him, a little bit struck in admiration. At least you genuinely give a damn, I thought. Bet you can’t wait to get back to your jam and allotment after the Tory landslide next month.

I watched him stroll off down the road and around the corner towards that once crumbling edifice, now polished-up and repurposed, the old Highbury stadium.

And good luck against Mrs May mate, I thought. You’ll certainly need it.

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