Corbyn and I: Hyde Park to the Albert Hall

Jeremy Corbyn and I have a few things in common. Neither of us drink, we have the same success rate at A-Levels, and we both embarked on a new job at Westminster on the same day after over 30 years doing other things for our respective employers. Him in Parliament, myself at the BBC.

It's likely I first crossed his path at a CND rally I was covering in Hyde Park in 1983, external.

I was a budding radio journalist. Nervous. Fumbling with the controls of the heavy reel-to-reel tape recorder, more concerned with making the technology work than who I was supposed to interview. Manny Shinwell was one (he had been in the post-war Labour cabinet).

Another was Arthur Scargill. He was about to take the miners into an era-defining strike. Jeremy Corbyn was a recently elected MP.

I've covered every election since, but our paths didn't cross again until last summer.

I went along to one of his leadership rallies at the Albert Hall in Nottingham. It was packed. People of all generations snaked in a long queue around the block to get in. Hundreds couldn't, so Mr Corbyn stood on a wall and gave an impromptu and stirring speech to those shut out.

It was clear something different was happening in the Labour leadership contest. Something unexpected none of the pundits predicted. A politician drawing crowds. And as it turned out a political dawning for Labour.

It was where something also happened which took me back to Hyde Park.

A newspaper photographer was asked if he was part of the fascist press. The kind of insulting language from 30 years ago which became popularised by Rik Mayall's CND badge wearing student in The Young Ones. "For we won't be the young ones very long" goes the song. Yet here we were, student-like insults flying.

More was to come. "Red Tories" and some pretty vile insults on social media to those who held different views in the same party.

Leicester West MP Liz Kendall received a lot of them during and after her leadership challenge.

And the self-proclaimed "tough cookie" dealt with them marvellously. "You don't frighten me comrade" is my favourite response to someone called Darren who claimed "we need a final solution to purge Blairite scum like @leicesterliz from the Labour Party".

She says she is concerned that far left groups involved in Momentum were more interested in attacking Labour MPs than the Tories.

For his part Jeremy Corbyn has publicly tried to distance himself from the insults verging on bullying. He repeatedly says he doesn't do personal attacks. But it's worth keeping an eye on how he deals with them - and how the Parliamentary Labour Party reacts.

Following December's vote on bombing Syria, the next will be about the renewal of Trident.

Will all this damage Labour's chances of winning power in 2020? Will Jeremy Corbyn hold on to the leadership? He has the popular mandate from Labour supporters. But the Parliamentary party has the mandate from the electorate.

Also don't forget in many cases it is the party in power which loses elections. Power slips away. Voters fancy a change every now and again.

One thing is certain. Don't trust predictions. No one predicted a majority Conservative government in 2015. The polls on voting intentions were wrong.

No one predicted Jeremy Corbyn would win the Labour leadership. Many were predicting Labour would lose the Oldham by-election and he was in danger of being deposed sooner rather than later.

So it looks like I'll be crossing the political path of Jeremy Corbyn for a while yet.