Wes Streeting considers himself a “particularly lucky” man.

The MP for Ilford North defied the odds to be elected to Parliament on a slender majority of 589 last May.

“I was four cans down drowning my sorrows,” he says. “I’d only prepared a concession speech.” His chances were slim: Ilford North was 83rd on Labour’s target list, making his victory a rare highlight for his party during a disastrous election.

“There’s something about being elected in a marginal constituency against the odds that really does root you in voters’ minds,” he tells me.

Are there parallels with Cambridge’s Daniel Zeichner, who also unexpectedly prevailed, with a majority of 599?

“Our seats are very different. Mine is a hyper-diverse, multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-faith constituency, and Dan’s seat, as I know from my time here, is a really interesting mix between town and gown.”

Were there local factors in Ilford North that allowed him to prevail against national scepticism about his party’s stance on immigration, the economy and welfare?

“I’ve lived in the area for 15 years. I’ve got my own personal story in terms of my working-class background.”

He is also quick to point out his engagement, both in interview and during his talk, where he not so subtly made it clear he had delivered cards to his constituents on Christmas Eve.

“Between January and May, my constituency party knocked on more doors than any other in Britain,” he claims. “I was absolutely relentless in talking to undecided voters.”

But the same theme from his talk of the party’s current distance from its voters, potential and actual, again surfaces, unprompted.

“We’ve got to be a bit more connected with what voters are saying.”

His frustration at aspects of the party leadership is clearly evident, but he is careful to word it in soft language.

“If we’re not careful, the north of England could be the new Scotland,” he warns, “I don’t think at the moment the Labour Party can take any voters in any part of the country for granted.”

“And in fact we shouldn’t anyway,” he is quick to add. Don’t expect him to say he would knife Corbyn “in the front, not the back”, as his 2015 intake colleague Jess Phillips did in December. His time as NUS President from 2008-2010 seems to have left him very aware of the right thing to say.

Does he see any shifts in student politics from his tenure?

“Student politics has definitely shifted to the left,” he concedes. He praises current NUS President Megan Dunn for what she done in protesting the scrapping of maintenance grants, but acknowledges that moments like the failure of the NUS motion to condemn ISIS amid claims of Islamophobia was mistake.

“I think some of those things have been own goals,” he says.

Can the same be said of Labour, or is there a media conspiracy?

“It’s so easy to blame the media,” he exclaims. “I’m not up for media moaning.”

“What you need to do is have a clear message and get that out in a creative way on issues that people care about. It’s too easy to blame the media for the Labour Party’s woes.” The problems, he argues, lie “closer to home”.

Are there parallels with media coverage in his own student days?

“Oh no, I always had a really good relationship with Varsity and TCS,” he claims. “At one point they had to nail the door shut between my office and the TCS editor’s office because there were always accusations of pro-CUSU bias.” Plus ça change…

He may also be forgetting the Varsity front page from February 2007 that thundered: “Streeting hangs CUSU out to dry”, when he was accused of “betraying” his former students’ union over the issue of its affiliation to the National Student Survey.
He reveals he once wrote news articles for TCS and turned down an offer to become their news editor because of other commitments, particularly his involvement with CUSU.

“By and large, the student press was kind to me,” he says. “But then that was because obviously I was so brilliant as CUSU President.” Time will tell whether his constituents agree.