LONDON - Boris Johnson was momentarily stunned. The official British election exit poll wasn't just predicting he would hold on to power, it put his Conservative Party on course for its biggest win for more than 30 years.
For the 70-year-old Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, election night brought disaster. His four-year project trying to sell a radical socialist agenda to Britain was resoundingly rejected. A wall of working class districts deserted the party that had dominated them for decades, recoiling at Corbyn's leadership and his proposal for another Brexit referendum.
Yet, while Johnson's aides always believed they had a good chance of success, they were haunted by the failure of his predecessor, Theresa May, when she called a snap vote two years ago. A dismal and robotic campaign and a resurgent Labour party under Corbyn cost May the majority she started with, plunging Britain into political chaos and ultimately dooming her premiership.
But for the most impressive work, the Aussie handed out a soft toy kiwi bird - a tribute to his New Zealander colleagues who joined the campaign. These included a young duo, Ben Guerin and Sean Topham, who ran the party's often controversial social media war. Johnson was ready for that attack, though the wheels almost came off his campaign when he showed a flash of temper instead of compassion after he was confronted by a photograph of a four-year-old boy being treated on an overcrowded hospital's floor.
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