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.

I hope he helps Labour to get back to its roots, but I also sincerely hope he never becomes Prime Minister. I am a life long labour vote, but I would never vote Labour in a general election with Corbyn as leader.

Ava I have a sneaking suspicion that most of that group already vote Labour. I work in the public sector which is a lot more dependent on private funding for large sections (HE) and I know that Corbyn makes a lot of people jumpy.

There is a lot of research in Engineering etc which just couldn't be funded by the state, and if private companies pull the plug it just won't happen. The inefficiency of state sponsoring for that kind of thing is one of the reasons we have so many Chinese students and researchers over here pumping a shit load of money around the economy with their work.

Only 19% of the workforce is in the public sector:

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pse/public-sector-employment/q2-2013/sty-public-section-employment.html

So Corbyn needs to work out how to get the other 80% in the private sector to vote for him and I've seen him do little to appeal to them.

Outside of that number 27.9% are economically inactive. But most of them are going to be pensioners with pension fund related income who are also going to need a bit of convincing.

You can't just win elections with public sector workers. Attracting other voters has always been Labour's issue and it's not one Corbyn has effectively addressed.

But there's a powerful belief that the UK electorate wants to shaft the family two doors down and everybody else if they can, to bathe in the distant reflected glow from billionaires' swimming pools, to punish young people and push old ones out of the way. We're supposedly every man for himself these days, and fuck the cripples at the back. We are selfish and politically apathetic.

Except we are not like that. We've been told this story about ourselves by our mainstream media and by (to quote Claig) elite tory spin-doctors. One man stands up and says, basically, "I'm not like that - are you?" and hundreds of thousands of supposedly apathetic, self-serving voters suddenly mobilise to change the story.

I feel very happy today.

Claig thanks for that. I always thought that Farage was on the side of the elites. Like how he hated single mums, the disabled, people on benefits full stop. But I think that I see where you are coming from more now.

he has to be better than the pile of shite in power now

'Like how he hated single mums, the disabled, people on benefits full stop.'

He doesn't hate them. That is how the media portray him because he is a threat to the cosy elite system stitch-up. Corbyn is getting a similar hatchet job from the media but on different issues because he is even more of a threat to the elite.

The elite use every trick and smear in the book to hold on to the stitch-up system. But their New Labour is now dead and buried and all the pillars of their control are beginning to crumble under the people's onslaught from UKIP and now Corbyn's Labour.

Autumn and others saying he put his politics before his child... From what I've read, it was his own experience of grammar school that made him a fervent supporter of the comprehensive system. Not 'all right, Jack' at all.

You're assuming that grammar schools provide the best education for a bright child. Plenty of people would disagree with you. Quite a few in my area enter their dcs for the neighbouring borough's gs and then opt instead for the local comps.

The fact that his son chose to live with his mother is more or less the norm after a marriage breakup. With MPs' hours, it probably made more sense.

I agree with pp's who said that he comes out better over this than Harriet Harman and Diane Abbott and their educational choices.

Attracting other voters has always been Labour's issue and it's not one Corbyn has effectively addressed

Absolutely, Kanye.

I'm not a fan of Corbyn nor a Labour supporter but if the Party expects to have any chance of regaining a Parliamentary majority they have to recognise that view.

The thing I do like about Corbyn - his principles/integrity - are what I think will make Labour unelectable under his leadership.

Where does that leave Labour - or indeed any political party?

this thread is so funny we have the ukip mn defending ......the beer drinker

Vestandknickers would you have for Milliband?

Kanye I suppose that has always been the case, I think I'm more idealistic now. No I know I am. You had a really good post earlier btw.

'Do you not however find it is odd as I do that opinion pollsters seem to produce some wildly inaccurate predictions when votes are actually cast? The last UK election was the most recent but by no means only such example?'

Yes the last UK general election was befuddling, and embarrassing for all pollsters I'd imagine. With regards to the indyref though the pollsters were on the money all along.

The Holyrood elections next May will be a good indication as to whether the SNP are still gaining momentum. I suspect they'll have a bit of a landslide, the prospect of which I can't say excites me to be honest.

I think this makes a coalition in Scotland much more likely next year. The SNP have picked up a lot of the labour left wing vote so with a staunch left-winger leading Labour the support for labour may pick up again. Corbyn just needs to stay on an idealistic rather than realistic track for a bit longer.

Attracting other voters has always been Labour's issue

The Conservatives have created an ideal opportunity. Only 20% of us have an above-average income. For those 20%, things aren't too bad and stuff basically works. But current policies have put 80% of the population into varying degrees of exclusion. Our standard of living is falling faster than at any time since Victoria. We are being told we are nasty, useless and expensive.

I should think a very large sector is open to better ideas. Ten thousand people joined Labour this afternoon!

Labour's traditionally been the party of broadest appeal. Due to the stories we've been told about ourselves, we've forgotten that we are fundamentally socialist-lite, like most of Europe. You don't have to be poor to want Labour, you only have to care about living in a safe & stable society. Focusing on big business can't bring that, as the posh boys in number ten are realising rather more slowly than the rest of us.

I'm quite glad he has won, it will mean real opposition and a change in the political direction as the Tories will have to dive left on some issues to clamber for the centre ground.

But he is going to be in for a hard time and it won't be the right wing that will give him the biggest kicking IMO, he has already talked about housing and rent controls being a big issue, that will alienate a lot of the champaign socialists and wealthier labour supporters who want equality as long as it doesn't affect house prices, and then you have his yet unqualified stance on immigration, labour lost lots of votes from the working class on this issue, now the calls of racists Yada Yada is warranted and also misguided you have to listen to and address these issues properly, throwing numbers and stats around doesn't work (as has been proven at the last GE)

His anti nuclear approach scares me as we need independence in this area , and his stance on Argentina is a little off, but as a neutral in this dog fight I am glad he won.

I have to say though that I do find it interesting that within social media he is applauded for being principled and yet those that have stood down today are derided as a little contradictory. I also think it's slightly presumptions that all those disaffected/can't be arsed voters are all part of some left wing sleeper cells.

It's going to be interesting for the next couple of years and I expect that there will be a lot of talk of 'propaganda' and right wing press when he comes under scrutiny, which as opposition leader you should expect, yet I think a lot is going to come from within his sphere and they are the ones to watch out for.

Bit of a rant

Good news. All the other candidates were just Tory lites.

Except we are not like that. We've been told this story about ourselves by our mainstream media and by (to quote Claig) elite tory spin-doctors

Garrick how do you reconcile your view with the result of the May 2015 general election which rejected a far more moderate version of what Corbyn offers? Do you think that English Labour voters who wouldn't vote for Miliband thus enabling a Conservative majority would now vote for JC in a General Election? How can you rationally argue that?

I think you will find Garrick most of Europe is turning centre right, with a worrying background of extreme right in some scenarios.

I think Garrick is right. Voters had no choice - it was Tory or Tory-lite, so they had to do the Tory thing and think about themselves. But Corbyn has changed the story, he offers a much broader, better vision. It is no longer dog eat dog keep your position on the ladder, he says there can be a better society and that is what people really want but were never offered.

Farage was a former commodity broker, who has his snout firmly in the MEP expenses trough. He is part of the elite
He represents their openly nasty side: racist, sexist, homophobic

Anyone who thinks he represents ordinary British people against the elite is seriously deluded and / or ignorant.

Everyone whos banging on about voters that didn't turn up for miliband are forgetting the huge number of people turning up for jc rallies and joining the labour party vote.

The rally he did in my city (which I missed unfortunately) was electrifying. It wasn't just politics for mc and upper class older white people. It was students, it was under 30s, there were Somalians there getting involved there were Asian, African, Jamaican and black British involved.

No other politician has had that as far as know. I'm in my late twenties and in my bubble of friends, colleagues and db uni friends we are energised. Most think tanks wrote us off as not caring about politics but we did, it's just the system we didnt believe in. A lot of people believe the election is rigged and there are higher up men running this country that we don't even know about. This could be a conspiracy theory but our vote for jc today has shown us that our vote counts and we can make a change.

Hes the first principled politican my generation has found. We are fed up of being took for mugs by the elite sitting in their big warm houses paid by old dirty money. Do you not think black people don't know about the slave trade and how the elite are still living off the money they made with that today.

We have conversations about how the country is unfair and fucked up and until now we didn't have anyone that was on our side. Ed was just another suit and no-one believed he could stand up and do the job.

I note Rachel Reeves was quick to consign herself to the back benches. I never bought Chuka's 'personal reasons' excuse for dropping out and it looks as though it was a wise decision. Rachel of course ruled herself out because she had just given birth.

I suspect that when Jeremy is no longer leader, be that before or after 2020, Chuka and Rachel will be the dream ticket. I suspect with Rachel as the leader.

Claig, I'm afraid I'm unsure on your position as I read a lot of your posts pre election championing the 'mighty' farage as sticking it to the elite, to switch allegance at a drop of a hat to corbyn with such fundamental differences in policies doesn't really hold weight with the anti establishment stance that you try and portray

It's interesting to read the criticism over his son's school choice. My dad (visually a doppelganger for Corbyn) is of that generation and went to grammar school. When it came to my education I was grammar school material but the only grammar school that was viable required church attendance and he refused to do it as an atheist. So I went to the local comp which was not great.
How do I feel about that? Well I hated the school but I'd have hated the travel and religion in the grammar school. I refused Oxbridge because I didn't want to be elitist. But I agree with my dad's principles and respect him. I think he was right.

Lots of passion about what's wrong with the country, BrandNew, so how would you change things.

Perhaps you'd suggest a better tax policy which would raise revenue to fund what I assume would be your plans to increase spending? How would you deal with the reaction of the international capital markets when bond yields increase making government borrowing (of which, you'll be aware, we have rather a lot) even more expensive putting further strain on public finances.

Would you abandon Trident in the face of an expansionist, aggressive Russian foreign policy?

What about immigration? Open the doors to an unlimited number of those poor souls fleeing Syria but irrespective of the financial and social consequences?

It is not callous or cold-hearted to recognise these are all very serious issues but to glibly complain as some do about the "rich" and the "elite" without articulating any meaningful proposals as to how things could be done differently -and effectively - seems rather pointless.

I don't think claig has made much of a shift in one area. Essentially for claig it's about putting the knife into the spin doctored status quo. The lurch from supporting the bongo bongo sayers to the human rights platform is funny but that's not claig's priority. Anything to put a rocket up the establishment says claig.