Weekly returns to the presses for special election issue after night of drama

An independent weekly newspaper published a special election edition just hours after covering two of the biggest Election stories of count night.

The Camden New Journal printed its normal edition on Thursday morning — and then updated the paper with a second run on Friday evening after a night of high drama at election counts in its area.

The New Journal witnessed Holborn and St Pancras voters return Sir Keir Starmet as their MP — and send him on his way to become the first Labour Prime Minister to win power for the party since 1997.

Coverage was updated in real-time on the CNJ’s website.

Meanwhile, sister title the Islington Tribune published at 8am on Friday to record the victory of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in his Islington North constituency.

Corbyn, standing as an independent, took much of his support with him following his explusion from the Labour Party amid accusations he hadn’t taken allegations of anti-semitism under his watch as leader seriously.

Richard Osley, editor of the titles, has since criticised Labour and its candidate against Mr Corbyn, Praful Nargun, for being inaccessible to his journalists.

He said: “Someone somewhere in Labour’s campaign operation made the decision that Praful Nargund, its new candidate in Islington North, would not speak to the Islington Tribune.

“The dodging of any questions from the borough’s best read newspaper has been taken by our reporters as something of a badge of honour. Scores of requests for an interview in which he could tell us why he wanted to be our area’s MP were rejected.

“But the final result in the constituency suggests that robotic control of media messaging is not as fantastic a strategy as the macho Thick Of It types might think.”

The special editions of the CNJ after Thursday elections are something of a tradition, having being published after various counts over the years.