Well, there we have it: Jeremy Corbyn has just been announced the next Labour Leader

[InTheBox]

With 59% of the vote (first round).

I've just been following the live BBC broadcast and just wanted them to get on with it.

No doubt people on both sides of the political spectrum will be overjoyed with the result.

If Labour win the next election they will have to increase taxes hugely. Rich people from overseas who came to live here because of, among other things, the UK's reasonable tax rates will leave in their droves. Is their leaving a good or bad thing?

So JC is sexist for having a younger wife (because clearly the woman has no say), meanwhile George Osbourne gets caught using prostitutes whilst taking cocaine, and Boris Johnson is a serial philanderer and that's ok...

Right?

OK.

"Also non-voters can't be assumed to be left-wing as there are places like Scotland where Tory voters just wouldn't bother turning out"

There was a website just after the election, with all sorts of interesting graphs/charts etc. If you looked at 'who came second?' Scotland was almost entirely blue. PR would have returned Scottish Tories.

JC does not just want a Palestinian state, he also does not want Israel.

Blair and Kinnock go and crawl back into your money lined holes.

Whatever you think of his policies, Corbyn is no more a "man of the people" than Nigel Farage, as both experienced a privileged, wealthy upbringing and private education.

There will also be boundary changes before 2020, which will reduce the Labour party by about 20 seats, evening up the current system which favours Labour.
I think people are also discounting many 'champagne' socialists who will be scared of JC and move to the Conservatives.

But it's fairly obvious that 'who came second' would be conservative in Scotland. It was very clearly the Labour voters who went SNP.

I'm sure that the tories came second in England in 97, 01 and 05.

I'm also sure that Labour came second in 2010 and 2015.

When there are only two main parties it's not a great shock that the one that doesn't come first, comes second!

Whatever you think of his policies, Corbyn is no more a "man of the people" than Nigel Farage, as both experienced a privileged, wealthy upbringing and private education.

Unlike these men of the people

I think the telegraph article linked to in the first few pages is spot on. And I fear that feeling they have no electable opposition, the conservatives will move further right.

I think it's a bad thing all round.

If as has been reported Corbyn is friends with Jerry Adams and Martin McGuiness then that's all I need to know.

Spare a thought for that poor Liz Kendall, she only got 4.5% of the vote. Not even dip in the ocean.
Shouldn't worry about her. She knew she had a slim chance right from the outset. People tried to get her to stand down and she stuck to her guns. She has potential to go far. (And she went to the same school as my sister and grew up in the village where my parents live, which is totally irrelevant!)
I admire her.

All the champagne socialists I know (many!) are delighted JC has won. They're all proper socialists who were teenagers in the 70's & left the labour party after the Iraq war. Apparently Corbyn rallies have been full of them. I was talking to a champagne socialist in our street this afternoon & he was practically dancing in the street. My facebook timeline is full of champagne socialists celebrating.

I know the Murdoch press says he's unelectable - it's not what I see & I wonder why, if he's so unelectable they're so busy trying to persuade us that's the case

I do too Larry, even though I disagree with her politics. She handled herself well today and is a young woman, she'll bounce back from this.

Agreed Lumpy.

LarrytheCucumber I admit that comment was rather tongue-in-cheek. The problem with LK is that she's always appeared to be a career politician from the outset. By this I mean that it didn't matter which political bandwagon she jumped on, all that mattered was that she climbed up the political ladder. Tbh, this is very true of the majority of politicians but she didn't have a hope in hell in this leadership election. I think Harriet Harman could have given JC a run for his money (and most probably she'd have had the support of the rest of the party) but she chose otherwise.

I'm not convinced r.e. JC, I think these elections tend to go in cycles, it's been a while since the left had a proper leader, the last time there was this much uproar was with Tony Blair, and we all know how that's now ended with him as one of the most hated people, let alone politicians, on earth. I suppose time will tell.

Unlike these men of the people

I know, just more of the same unfortunately.

I suspect the press trumpeting how "unelectable" he is may ultimately have the effect of making him more electable than he might otherwise have been.

I don't have a strong opinion either way - as a centre left person I like a lot of what he says, though I find some of his more obsessive supporters worrying (whatever they think, purging the labour party of everyone who doesn't support JC is a shortcut to losing the next election).

However, my FB feed loves him - mostly highly educated over 30 professionals, a mix of public sector, private and self-employed. It's a biased sample of course - I don't have any colleagues as FB friends and they would definitely be less Jeremy-friendly - but it does demonstrate the danger of assessing "electability" via your personal echo chamber. The political right and the mainstream press need to be careful about this.

'the UK's reasonable tax rates'

How are they reasonable when public services are going down the pan and people who are poor and disabled are relying on foodbanks to survive?

'Corbyn is no more a "man of the people" than Nigel Farage, as both experienced a privileged, wealthy upbringing and private education'

It isn't where you come from, it is how you behave, how you communicate, how much you listen, how many of your policies are for the good of the people rather than the good of yourself.

Our tax rates are totally unreasonable! Half your income confiscated in income tax, 20% VAT, 40% stolen when you die by the state, £10k stamp duty on tiny first properties in London. We are taxed to the hilt.

I have no confidence at all the Tories will move to the more reasonable right sadly, none at all. They are just wet to the core.

We need radical tax cutting policies and to halve the size of the state.

We are slightly more likely to get that under the Tories so I am glad Corbyn has been elected as that makes labour less likely to get in.

'40% stolen when you die'

You can't take it with you. What do you need it for?

'We need radical tax cutting policies and to halve the size of the state'

How will that help the poor? How will that help the majority in fact?

Mollie

I understand how the FPTP system works thanks. I was pointing out the numbers to those that believe that the majority of people voted for the tories.

(I would do the same if it was labour in this position)

The left on the far left do not believe in personal property and the rest of us do so why should the state take a penny in tax from your estate if you die? I as a single parent if I die tomorrow my children are homeless because we have to pay inheritance tax. They should abolish it entirely.

Where does all the money come from to pay the bankers their bonuses?

Well, it comes from the profits these private companies make.

It certainly won't be getting channeled off into buying the fecking railways back!!

And while we're talking about it - by the time he's bought the railways, paid the staff the same wages & paid for all the normal running costs, maintenance do you really think the ticket price will go down or even stay static?

It's all sound-bites for mugs.....