A YEAR ago today, the weather was Biblical as my friend and I set off for Hastings on the morning of the election, December 12.

We had a list of probable Labour voters that we collected from the campaign centre, a busy, friendly house, where we were offered tea, coffee and biscuits. Three of us set off in the car with our maps and lists to round up the voters . The weather never improved, and the doors we knocked on were, with a few exceptions, equally inclement. I began to think: had the local party made some kind of mistake?

I had had an inkling that it could go like this over the previous five or six weeks in Worthing where we had campaigned in another south-coast marginal. To begin with, the feeling was optimistic. So many people turned up at the election campaign launch in Shoreham harbour.

But the more potential voters we met, the more it seemed that many were either hostile, wary or had lost all hope of any promise from Labour.