Corbyn clearly found some latent force in British politics which had eluded both the pollsters and indeed Mrs May, who blithely called an election which lost her party its majority in the House of Commons.
Last Monday I began to wonder if there was just such a latent force or forces rumbling away under New Zealand politics.
I went along to a public meeting in my own Te Atatu electorate, called by local MP Phil Twyford, to discuss the "Housing Crisis" at a local community centre.
It was a cold and drizzly night but I felt I should go and make up numbers for Phil, who's a very good local MP and a friend.
I expected to see a handful of loyal supporters, however nearly 200 people showed up and the atmosphere was electric.
The meeting was unusual in that the audience was asked to lodge questions and make statements at the beginning of the meeting rather than at the end.
This format, which I thought was risky, worked well and I was surprised to see some real passion, verging on anger, expressed around the housing issue.
An elderly woman spoke movingly about losing regular contact with her grandchildren when their parents - teachers who simply couldn't afford to own a house in Auckland - saw their rents going through the roof, and took jobs in the South Island.
A weekly Skype call just doesn't equal a cuddle.
Many at the meeting were renters, and rising rents and a shortage of rental properties was a common theme.
It seemed to be assumed that the Government's Budget announcement of increased accommodation supplements would simply be captured by the landlords via rent increases.
There was deep concern about state housing, with real alarm about the seemingly mad Government policy of reducing the overall numbers of state houses on its watch while attempting to sell off large numbers.
Third-term governments often fall victim to arrogance and to be fair, apart from rookie minister Alfred Ngaro's threat to cut off funding to NGOs who criticised the government and Simon Bridges' high-handed attempts to gag KiwiRail, we haven't seen too much of that kind of hubris.
However, another characteristic of a government that's been in too long is inertia.
Problems which would have been enthusiastically attacked in a first term seem too hard and get left to fester.
This is exactly what's happening with housing.
It seems to me the National Government has interpreted the rapid inflation of house prices, now hitting places such as Hawke's Bay, as being good for the majority of people who own houses.
I can personally attest that the experience of becoming a paper millionaire on the basis of owning one ordinary mortgage-free Auckland house is a pleasant one, but the downsides of this trend are revealed to be, for many, thoroughly negative.
It's not, for example much fun if your new-found wealth has to be mortgaged to help your kids get a roof over their heads, and according to an economist I met recently, there's an awful lot of that going on.
The Government has an inkling that there's big trouble simmering around the housing issue and this week a belated state-housing strategy was announced for Hawke's Bay.
It's somewhat difficult to work out what exactly is intended for the Bay with the announcement couched as "places" rather than houses and it's not clear that the 300 state units which have been subtracted from Hawke's Bay over the last five years will be replaced.
Councillor Maxine Boag will be reflecting widely held views when she says that this looks "like too little, too late".
* Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
