I see library footage on a news channel of Boris Johnson slinging insults at Jeremy Corbyn over the despatch box and feel a strange sudden sense of déjà vu. I know I have witnessed this performance before. The penny drops. It is winter, 2002. I and my fellow firefighters, on strike over low pay, are shivering on a picket line outside Islington fire station. Local MP Corbyn, ever the ally to workers in struggle, is standing with us.
From the corner of my eye, I spot a figure with a red face and blond hair approaching us on a bicycle, pedalling like billy-o. As he whizzes past, he throws curses — ‘Get back to work!’ or something similar — at our huddled band of brothers. It was local resident Johnson, of course. It dawns on me that the seeds of contempt between the PM and leader of the opposition were sown on the cobbles of that snow-flecked north London street 17 years ago.
