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.

It didn't. It offered an incompetent and defensive version of what the conservatives were

So by your reasoning, the electorate who wouldn't vote for Miliband either abstained or voted Green/LibDem? Come on...

How do you argue that given the turnout and votes cast in comparison with past elections?

There seems to be a view on this thread that the tide of public opinion has suddenly swung in a different direction. In fact, the actual numbers voting for JC are a very small proportion of the total electorate.

Which is why Janet is correct.

cricket
"JC doesn't hold the same views as the electorate and he will find it difficult to change". To me this is astounding; surely this result shows that these so called political experts don't understand the majority's views
the majority (60%) of all labour's members (500,000) selected him.
the majority of the electorate of 20m (?) did not vote in the selection and have had no say in his selection. - I am not astounded at all.

I agree QueenStarlight. The Tories will now get called out on some of the evil they are inflicting - like finding people to be fit for work just before they die and then trying desperately to hide it from us.

This is the week that keeps on giving!! If Sturgeon gets her way & calls another referendum, taking the Scots out of the UK, then I'll never have to vote Tory again - they'll be the only party left!!

I'm a member but I didn't vote as I don't know enough about politics to make that decision.

I figured that those who know these things will make the right decision.

One thing's for sure, he's going to need some help with the speech giving, I mean he clearly knows what he wants to say but getting it across seemed like a struggle. He sounded a bit all over the place.

I think I like him though. The best bit was the reaction the result got - as if everyone knew it was the right thing - that was very encouraging.

I look forward to seeing what happens next.

He knows he won't be Prime Minister, JC is an activist more than a world leader, but he'll go in, shake things up a bit & then leave. He'll be 70 in 2020 which is too old, & he knows that.
He's going to love the next few years though.

"I figured that those who know these things will make the right decision."

gudren I think you should trust your own judgement - if you feel uninformed then so be it but I don't think that the world will be a better place for it. Your opinion counted as much as anyone else's!

Corbyn will be 70 in 2015. Clinton will be 72. Putin will be 67. I'm really not seeing his age as being a pressing issue.

I don't think 'public' opinion has changed much at all. It's just that no-one was listening and an overemphasis on their likeliness to be manipulated was given.

Thanks Girl but I don't have one. Not an informed one. My inbox filled up with about 200 emails from the various candidates in the past few months and I didn't have the time, energy or inclination to read any of it - I don't process things very well - it's taken me 42 years to know I'm a labour supporter, and that's for definite, but the ins and outs of policy are well beyond my capabilities to understand.

Especually when they are couched in language designed to convince, rather than straightforward bullet points without bias.

Shameful really. I wish I could read between the lines. But I can't.

Gudrun i think it's probably unreasonable to make a snap judgement based on yesterday - the man has just completed what must have been exhausting campaign, he was undoubtedly very emotional due to the reception he got, and I doubt he employs image consultants and speechwriters to make himself look and sound good.

I'm not a corbynite but it's clear that a large chunk of the electorate - including a vast majority of labour supporters, if yesterday's results are anything to go by - want something different. I'm not convinced they know WHAT they want yet, but with 40% of the electorate abstaining at the last GE and close to 20% voting for "alternative" rather than establishment parties, there is a gap to be filled. Whether JC is the person to do it, and whether the sudden upsurge in interest in politics from the disenfranchised can be maintained, are questions which no one can answer yet.

I posted that activists live in a bubble - left and right wing bubbles.
To win, a party has to reach outside its bubble and then reach even further, outside its core vote, illustrated in this simple graphic.
Now does JC being Labour leader result help that process for Labour ?
The Tories are having fits of uncontrollable laughter.

I think the only chance for Labour in 2020 is Harold Macmillan's "Events, dear boy"

As for his age ... just look West. Clinton is 67, Sanders 74 and Biden 72. It's very likely that one of these will be the next American president.

I know Misti, I don't wish to sound derogatory, it's meant to be constructive criticism - Tom Watson sounded great, very clear, very engaging, not emotional at all in the sense of 'overwhelmed' - he came across very very well indeed.

Corbyn sounded flustered, and I am sure he doesn't employ anyone to make him look or sound better but if he wants more people to listen than already do, he has to be easier to understand.

I wanted to hear what he had to say, don't get me wrong, but it felt a bit uncomfortable and quite difficult to make out.

gudrun I'm with you on the convoluted prose and ridiculous amount of emails- I deleted them all and I really didn't appreciate it or think it made anything clearer 'inundated' would be a hood description. I also nearly didn't vote- having paid my £3 - but I would have been abstaining because I didn't get fired up by any of the candidates and not because I didn't feel if studied them all and pored over the ridiculous emails.

Fwiw I'm not sure I voted right but am glad I voted, I kind of think you have to invest in something to feel part of it. I think you sound like you have as valid an opinion as anyone

I also hated that Yvette's statement started with the words 'I hate' - not a statement any leader should define themselves by (even if it's aimed at the Tories and many might agree)

I am a Labour Party member. I voted for JC and TW. I don't think he will be the next Prime Ministet. I don't think Labour will win the next election. I think they know they won't. What I do think he will do is make us take a long hard look at ourselves and decide what we stand for instead of pussy-footing round the edges of Tory policies to try yo attract people.

I also think he will give us time to find the person who will lead us to election victory. Burnham is finished (thank God), so is Cooper. Liz Kendall was a non-starter.

There appears to be noone else we can believe in at the moment and that is very sad. Tom Watson will never be leader- he is not a statesman, he is an attack dog. Needed, necessary but not a statesman.

Will Ed Balls re-emerge-he has kept his head down? Will anyone believe in him- he seems to rub people up the wrong way. Chuka Umunna - I find him completely unconvincing and light-weight.He is style over any substance.

I have no worries about those who have said they will not serve under Corbyn. They will not serve- that says everything. They are paid to serve but are, like many politicians, obsessed with themselves.

Jamie Reed resigned immediately on Twitter! Who? He is another politcian obsessed with himself and unfortunately wildly over-rates himself.

I think it will be an interesting few years for Labour- lots of fighting, lots of debate and we will emerge stronger; different perhaps but stronger.

His age will be irrelevant if he becomes pm, please can we cut with the crap. Clinton will be 68 and after others will be in their late 60s to. He won't be an elderly gentleman up there within twenty five year olds.

Oops I must of got Clinton age wrong.but the fact remains.

Yes when every other email says 'it's between me and Yvette' or 'Only Andy can win this' and look what happened.

It was all a load of bollocks.

BigC - yes it was your comment I liked. The graphic above shows the uphill struggle which is fine by me as I want the Tories in for 10 years. I therefore support Corbyn all the way.

Janet Don't forget "Events"
However, imo, JC needs a major national / international crash to happen, before he can win an election.

We never know what will happen but I suspect we are coming out of not going into difficult economic times in the UK.

Labour are copying what the Tories did after their 1997 defeat: pleasing their activists
Miliband was Hague. JC is Duncan Smith. I hope we don't then see the Labour equivalent to Michael Howard.
If JC, or a similar young successor, loses really badly in 2020, let's not hear the mantra "they weren't sufficiently left wing"
(not to be rude, but I don't want to hear Janet's & Iknowiambut's laughter into my dotage)

Andrew Marr said to Gove on his BBC show this morning that aparently some people are pencilling in another recession for 2018. I didn't know that and wonder where he gets that from.

Cameron is desperate to rush through the EU Referendum because thinks may get worse later.

The Corbyn phenomenon is a huge change in British politics. it is the end of New Labour, the end of Blairism. The whole country is swinging left and the centre is collapsing. The ground has collapsed under the Lanour centrists, the Tory-lites.

Damina McBride on Corbyn in the Mail on Sunday

Before the General Election, many of my fellow Holloway residents were scathing about Ed Miliband and fearful of him taking office, but ask them how they would vote, and the answer was unanimous: ??Labour.??

Why? ??It??s Jeremy. He??s proper Labour.?? Proper Labour: the party established to represent the workers against the vested interests at the top.

Corbyn??s critics scorn the idea that Labour lost the Election because it was not Left-wing enough. But most ordinary voters had no idea what Miliband stood for. They did not see a socialist firebrand; they saw a chocolate soldier, who prevaricated over everything from his television image to his stance on the deficit.

By contrast, Corbyn??s undoubted appeal comes from the fact that he is principled, honest and authentic: he knows what and who he stands for, and says it loud and proud.

When Ed Miliband said after his 2010 election: ??We can??t be imprisoned by the focus groups ?? politics has to be about leadership or it??s about nothing??, no one believed he meant it. If Corbyn said the same, you can bet they would."

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3232255/And-finally-best-thing-Attlee.html

Everyone knows that Corbyn is for real, that there will be no more Oxbridge spin, no more media management, just pure old-fashioned socialism and that is giving people hope and it will challenge the Tories (who will have no arguments left apart from saying that Corbyn is a threat) and it will change the country.

The arguments of the other Labour candidates (the Tory-lites) were futile against Corbyn. They had nothing to counter him with, nothing to generate a scintilla of enthusiasm among supporters. It will be the same for the Tories because the Tory-lites and the Tories are the same.