Despite party membership increasing, Corbyn's Labour Party reached a new low this week, losing its deposit at the Richmond by-election.
Although its a one off and these things dont decide the make up of the next parliament, for the main opposition party to suffer such a low share of the vote is quite unbelievable.
Of course, the Libdems threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at this one but, Labour appear to be facing political oblivion.
UKIP are taking increasingly large chunks of Labours traditional support (although not in this particular seat) and with Scotland now solidly SNP, how can Labour ever expect to take power in Westminster in the future.

No!

Next question

So a by election when the party in power arent exactly popular and the main opposition party loses it's deposit, it's not exactly good news, for Corbyn, is it ?

It was Richmond

The most affluent constituency in the country? What were you expecting?

Labour voters voted tactically for the Lib Dems, in order to reduce the Tory majority. This is not reflective of the troubles of the Labour party, but of the stupidity of our first past the post electoral system.

Time will tell.
Obviously Labour were never, in a million years, going to win this seat and I fully accept that.
However, whilst Corbyn is clearly very popular among Labour activists, for the population at large, he has a similar "draw" as a certain, Michael Foot and it looks very much like they (Labour) face a similar length of time in the political wilderness.
Indeed, with Scotland now ruled by the SNP, it's quite possible that we may never again see a Labour government in the UK.
At the moment, they dont even come under the title of effective opposition which, isnt good for anyone.

I'm not questioning the argument that Corbyn is not looking electorally ineffective, more just that I don't think Richmond Park is anything to do with that. The argument around Corbyn is often that what appeals to the members (which he clearly does) doesn't appeal to the electorate. However, there's actually more Labour members in Richmond Park than voted Labour there in the by-election, which is why I'm so convinced it was overwhelmingly tactical voting rather than anything else.

At one point Labour were considering not fielding a candidate to give the Lib Dems a better chance but caved in to the local members demands that they should have the option to vote for their own party.

Corbyn's politics are a sort of student union' left-wing populism, it's based on a sort of "the enemy of my enemy" schtick, so for example he can get over people actually being murderous terrorists or anti-semites or any number of harmful things as long as they self-identify as opposing ideological concept he also opposes e.g. "American imperialism" or "Neoliberalism". It is in many ways the opposite of "small c" conservative pragmatism, because the actual harm done by these "friends" is considered less than the conceptual harm that can be attributed to the "enemy ideologies". The purity of the ideology is more important than the physical manifestation, so fare example stuff should be nationalised on principle even if the actual result would be no better or possibly even worse. This plays well with a substantial minority, but the majority, including the realist "left" which most of the Parliamentary Labour Party belong to, know its juvenile rubbish and the "real world" is more complex.

Corbyn won't be the end of the Labour Party, he's got to be given a chance to fail and hope that a new (pre-Iraq War) Blair figure can be found, who can put forward a sensible platform to rebuild on. It must be remembered that hard Left "Corbynistas" need the Labour brand, there are any number of socialist factions who've going nowhere slowly for a long time with the same schtick.

Although nobody is ever likely to forgive Blair, for his part in the Iraq war and nor should they, he did recognise that it's no good having policies and principles if enough people wont vote for them.
Corbyn, in this respect, has gone backwards.
His whole ethos is to stand by his personal thoughts and principles and hope that eventually enough people will come round to his way of thinking.
With the Libdems in turmoil (apart from the Richmond win) and the Tories likely to move further right, now is the time to mop up all of the centre ground.
It may not quite fit with his ideals but, if you dont have hold of the reigns, you cant ride the horse.

Corbyn is the kind of leader I'd imagine Rick from The Young Ones to vote for.

A lot of Labour supporters voted Lib Dem to get Zac Goldsmith out, Labour ran a pointless campaign (started far too late, not enough funding for advertisement, leaflets). And the area was a lib dem stronghold for many a year.

I suppose that's why the Labour Membership voted him in, twice, hoping that he can convert those personal principles and values into realistic policies that the general electorate and also his MP's can get behind. That second bit hasn't happened yet, and doesn't look like it will do to be honest, but he'd be a massive hypocrite just like most of the others in Westminster if he did as you suggest.

Ultimately, Corbyn's election wins were also protest votes in a sense. A big 'f-you' to the career-politicians and bull**itters that most of us loathe, people voting for anti-establishment, just like other votes we've seen in recent years.

However, the Richmond by-election isn't really one to judge him on. There have though been 6 other by-elections since Corbyn was elected leader, with Labour holding 5, and the Tories holding 1, but I must have missed the 5 threads on here titled "Labour heading for power"

You'll have to start a new "Labour heading for power" thread, that could be interesting.
I think that with Scotland likely to be a write off for some while, Labour may have to join forces with the SNP, to have any hope of holding the reins in Westminster but, a formal pact with the SNP could damage them further, south of the border.
Now, there's a conundrum.

It looks like the downhill slope is getting steeper for Corbyn and his team.
Although Sleaford is a true blue constituency, a further drop on their performance in the General Election, saw Labour come in 4th and receive only 7% of the vote.
I'm sure that it's all under control but, with some Labour politicians now happily confirming a jump to the left and their "happiness" about the Momentum group's influence on the party, Labour definitely risk becoming a fringe party.

For many decades you had Labour representing... well labour. And the Conservatives representing capital.

Progressive/liberal vs conservative/traditional was a secondary issue. The struggle was for economic power.

Now the working class has changed. Labour doesn't seem capable of representing their economic interests, and many of them are not very interested in the things that Labour has found to think about instead.

The Tories are, perhaps in the longer-term, facing a similar problem balancing the priorities of their economic liberals (powerful) and societal traditionalists (numerous).

Possibly we're seeing a realignment of politics along cultural rather than economic lines. In our electoral system, that would require a major realignment by both the traditional parties of power, or they'll go the way of the Whigs.

As with the Richmond by-election, I'm not sure there's much cause for concern in Labour not gaining Sleaford, or even losing some % of the vote, although the Corbyn/Labour critics will use it to stick the boot in.



It's certainly a risk. I think with the majority of policies and ideas Labour speak about, the majority of the populace would probably agree with them. They promoting fairness & equality. Unfortunately it's their ability to communicate said policies to the general population that they're failing to do effectively.

The bad PR and feeling around Corbyn (partly drummed up my the media, and partly by himself & some of the things he says that get picked up on) doesn't help either. He doesn't look or sound like a statesman. Whilst this shouldn't necessarily matter & people should be more concerned with what he actually says and judge him on his actions, unfortunately for a lot of the electorate it does matter.

The worst thing for the Labour party I believe was the terrible timing of the coup, straight after the Brexit vote. Corbyn won with a huge mandate in 2015, and there's no way those same voters would back a coup and oust the leader after just 9 months in charge. Plus, the polls at the time for Labour were reasonably good. If those MP's had kept their powder dry and carried out a coup further down the line, it might have worked.

Sadly for him the job of PM requires that you are a statesman and represent the country on the world stage. People are proud of this country and wouldn't want a rag bag like that representing them.

Blair, Obama, Cameron, even Sturgeon are smart, articulate and represent their respective countries on global front very well. How would Corbyn look turning up for a meeting with the Chinese, Japaneses, American... leaders. Even if he had something of value to say the message would be lost.

You just proved the point I was making really. He's smart & articulate (despite you alluding to him not being), yet the points you raise are superficial, they're commenting about Corbyn's appearance, rather than the substance in what he says and does.

I'm not having a go at you or anyone else for that, it does matter to some people, and it unfortunately matters to a large section of the electorate.



Just on the subject on "rag bags" representing our country - what are your thoughts on Boris as Foreign Secretary?

Not gaining Sleaford wont worry Labour or Corbyn but, their 28% rating in current opinion polls would worry any "main" opposition party that is not in power.
We've had 7 ? years of the Tories (albeit 5 years with the Libdems) and during this period we've had the toughest cut backs in the last 80+ years and still Labour are as popular as a fart in a space suit.
They need to wake up and smell the coffee, it's just not funny.

We had the failed coup among the parliamentary party and still Corbyn holds the reigns but, anyone can see that they are further away from winning the next election than ever.
Midn you, the Tories could implode over Europe but, Labour need to change direction or, at least improve their public perception.

You wanna think yourself lucky. Plenty of us had to endure a fooking witch followed by the grey man for eighteen long years.
We got our own special pr!ck after them.

Indeed and unless Labour get their act together, the Tories will get stronger and stronger in England, Wales & N.Ireland, which will give them carte banche to impose whatever they wish and despite May's promises to look after the poorer members in society, we ALL know how that one ends, more and more for the well off, probably some tax cuts as well and screw the rest.

The war was lost on a sunny day on a field at Orgreave a long time ago.
It wasn't for want of trying by many of us.

Too many Lemmings at Orgreave following king Arthur over the edge

Out thought by those nasty capitalists - now all Arthur argues about is whether he can keep his pad in the Barbican - and you wonder nobody takes socialists seriously!!