One more point: this is a momentous result beyond Britain's borders because you now have a major party leader whose foreign policy will probably not involve war, arms supplying and economic exploitation.

I am not a Labour party member, and am undecided as to whether I'll vote Corbyn should he remain leader in 2020. But this to me is his greatest virtue.

I'm in Turkey at the moment and I've spoken to loads of people from across the Middle East, and the overriding opinion among even the more Westernised middle classes is that Britain is a massive cause of disturbance in the region. I spoke to a guy from Yemen, who are being bombed by Saudi Arabia, and the vitriol he poured on Britain for supplying arms to a Wahabist extremist state who have murdered around 20 000 Yemeni in 6 months was so uncharacteristic of someone who was otherwise an incredibly polite, humble man it really made me think.

Likewise, that we will have a leader of the opposition who is openly critical of Israel, who are not only continuing to commit war crimes on the West Bank but are threatening to renew tensions with Iran in the area is massive. Maybe we will even stop supplying weapons and armoury to Qatar, Kuwait and the Saudis for them to channel on to IS?

It's easy to just look at home and regard the effect Corbyn's politics will have, but actually the biggest positive in my mind is that we shift our stance on the global scene.

But membership is massively important. UKIP's rise to hold the highest number of MEPs would never have happened without the surge in membership they gained a few years ago. The SNP gaining nearly every seat in Scotland was triggered by a mass mobilisation of activists around the referendum. The Labour party itself was born out of a desire for parliamentary recognition by the Trade Union movement, and thus its successes (Attlee, Wilson, even Blair) have all had to rely on strong membership support (under Blair, membership nearly hit 500000 having been at half of that under Kinnock).

In fact your point about leaders only proves this point. Labour lost in 83 because of a split in party membership between them and the SDP, under Milliband it nudged 200000 but that's nothing really. As for being credible, well Attlee was seen as credible in 45, Wilson was seen as credible in 74, and their manifestos were to the left of anything that's come out of the Corbyn camp so far. Interesting times.

You completely ignored or misunderstood the point I was making.

Being credible as a leader has a significant effect on your party's chances of getting elected.

I will add John Major to the list of non credible leaders. He was trounced by Blair in 97!

It's not about left or right for the majority of voters.

Labour got beat in May 2015 because of the public's lack of faith in Miliband/Balls being able to run our economy.

This morning it appears that Corbyn has appointed his best mate as Chancellor a move which has astounded senior Labour grandees and political commentators who believe that is a disastrous move.

Add that to Corbyn's intentions to re-open South Wales mines, and scrapping of Trident etc you have a very non credible leader who has almost zero chance of getting elected to PM in 2020. Fact.

Edited by Hoof Hearted (14 Sep 2015 10.27am)

I'd recommend people who think Trident is of any use in the modern age read how the Trident system operates and functions. It has only a prestige value only really, in so much as the UK having a nuclear deterrent that guarantees mutually assured destruction of a known enemy.

Realistically it should be replaced with a land based system where missiles can be easily re-targeted as required (not really a practical solution on Subs with Nuclear missiles).