Lewis Goodall
Newsnight producer

Jeremy Corbyn is the most radical left wing leader the Labour party membership has elected in modern times.

Many cite Michael Foot. But as I wrote some months ago (when all this seemed but a distant prospect) Foot was an entirely different kettle of fish. He was elected only by Labour party MPs, not the membership at large. He was chosen by the PLP as the unity candidate, against the more abrasive Denis Healy, winning the support of 129 of his fellow Labour MPs as opposed to Healey's 119. Corbyn,, by contrast could barely rustle 35 nominations and only did so with a great deal of help from colleagues who had no intention of voting for him. Foot had been a distinguished cabinet minister, an insider, defending the Labour government of Jim Callaghan’s last stand, as Leader of the House in  the 1979 no confidence debate. Up to now, Corbyn's most senior position had been as a member of the Social Security Select Committee.  Foot came to fight the left and the left came to dislike him and nor was he a pacifist, supporting the Thatcher government in its prosecution of the Falklands War.  

Image source, Getty Images

Moreover, it seems to me that the Left within the party membership and the trade union movement at large are far more powerful even  than they were in the 1980s. After all, the last time a truly powerful figure of the left contested an election seriously was Tony Benn in 1981 for the deputy leadership election against Healey. Benn lost by the narrowest of margins, “half a hair on a half an eyebrow” as Healey later said. But lose he did, by 0.9%.  The party which had been infiltrated at every level by the entryist left, had in fact voted (albeit by the narrowest of margins) for a man who had just a few years before inflicted a series of austerity budgets as Chancellor.  Today, by contrast, the vast majority of the party (members old and new) voted for the most left wing candidate in modern times as their leader. 

It’s fair to say that Jeremy Corbyn is the biggest outsider and the hitherto most marginal figure to be elected leader in the party’s history. In the postwar period he is doubtless the most leftist. The electoral schism in the Labour party is and has always been that you can’t run and win from the left. One way or another that dictum is about to be tested like never before.

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

A theme of Jeremy Corbyn's speech (picked up on by his supporters) was the need to stand firm against attacks from the media.

In some quarters it has already started:

Image source, Daily Mail

You perhaps would not have expected anything different from the Mail. However, it's worth noting that the rest of the press are reporting it in a relatively dispassionate way. The Sun are currently going with the mild pun of "It's Jeremy Corbwin: Leftie lands Labour Leadership",the Telegraph focus on the frontbenchers who are not going to serve (albeit with a Dan Hodges comment piece on "The day the Labour Party died"), the Times are playing it straight. The Guardian and Indy are warm.

Now they may (particularly the tabloids) be keeping their powder dry ahead of tomorrow morning's front pages, but as reactions go, it's not too bad. Even if the attacks start to intensify, you suspect that Mr Corbyn will wear them like a badge of honour.

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

Image source, Getty Images

As Evan has pointed out, one of the most significant moments in Jeremy Corbyn's speech was the place where he offered warm words for Liz Kendall.

In all honesty, he could afford to be magnanimous towards the only avowedly Blairite candidate. Her defeat was all but total. It's not much remarked upon, but her achievement in getting under 17% of Labour MPs to support her did not bode well for her chances.

It ended that she got just 4.5% of the vote, well below even the total that the pollsters were predicting. This is despite (or is it because of?) two high profile interventions from Tony Blair, alongside other dire warnings from figures such as Alan Johnson and Peter Mandelson. 

Everyone was talking before the result about the effect of the £3 members and how they might sweep aside the views of long-standing members. While they did vote overwhelmingly for Mr Corbyn, even among the members Liz Kendall did very poorly with only 5.5%. 

So, here is the state of the Blairites as I write:

• They can muster 17% of Labour MPs
• They can muster 5.5% of Labour members
• They can muster 4.5% of the entire Labour selectorate

All that they have now is the capacity to make a media impact (anything said by Blair, Johnson, Mandelson, Milburn, Clarke et al will be voraciously devoured by the media, including programmes like Newsnight) but this result arguably suggests that they are no longer really relevant to the direction of the party over (at least) the next 2 years.

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

Ladbrokes have been quick off the blocks. Before the ink has barely dried on Jeremy Corbyn's acceptance speech, the bookie has stolen a march on its rivals by offering odds , externalon who will be Labour Leader at the time of the next General Election. 

Good news for Mr Corbyn is that he is 5/4 favourite. Less good news is that Ladbrokes should even see the demand for such a market at this stage. The next favourites are:

• Dan Jarvis 6/1
• David Miliband 10/1
• Chuka Umunna 12/1
• Tom Watson 14/1
• Keir Starmer 16/1
• Alan Johnson 25/1
• BAR 33/1

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

Jeremy Corbyn  got 251,417 votes in this contest. By way of comparison, that's over 50,000 more than David Cameron AND David Davis got combined in the final round of the Tory leadership contest of 2005.

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

Very significant decision. Seems like most of the big hitters are going to declare their intentions to serve under Corbyn or not by end of today.

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

Image source, Getty Images

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has given us the first Tory comment:

“Labour are now a serious risk to our nation’s security, our economy’s security and your family’s security.

 “Whether it’s weakening our defences, raising taxes on jobs and earnings, racking up more debt and welfare or driving up the cost of living by printing money – Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party will hurt working people. 

“This is a very serious moment for our country – the Conservatives will continue to deliver stability, security and opportunity for working people."

Mr Fallon is Mr Cameron's preferred attack dog on important occasions. He got into trouble during the election for saying "“Ed Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become Labour leader. Now he is willing to stab the United Kingdom in the back to become prime minister.”

What Fallon has just said is in line with the Prime Minister's speech a couple of days ago when he talked continually about security. He was primarily talking about economic security, but Fallon is more explicit in talking about national security. This theme of security will run through Conservative attacks on Labour for as long as Mr Corbyn is leader.

Tim Montgomerie wrote an interesting piece yesterday about the Tory strategy. See here, external.

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

Shadow Health Minister Jamie Reed has tabled his "resignation" from that role in a very interesting letter , externalto new leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Two things: first, this is not a resignation. It is always the prerogative of a new leader to appoint their own team, so it wasn't really Mr Reed's post to resign.

Second, he will not be the first of the previous frontbench to refuse to serve. The question is: what exactly is the threshold of take up from people on the right of the party that enables Corbyn to say that he is bringing the party together?

If that number is just a handful, then he will be fine. If most of the big hitters (Chuka Umunna, Tristram Hunt, Liz Kendall, Emma Reynolds et al) on the Blairite wing sit it out, then increasingly it looks like an opposition within an opposition.

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

I say this with tongue firmly in cheek, but while YouGov will be breathing a sigh of relief that they correctly picked the winner in this race, it's worth noting that the last YouGov poll (which put Corbyn at 53% on the first round) was still over 6% out from his final result.

Now, the pollsters would say that this reflects a surge towards Corbyn as the race reached its climax, but it just shows that polling is only really picked up on when you get the overall winner wrong. Misjudging the scale of a victory is very rarely remembered. 

Ed Brown
Newsnight producer

So Jeremy Corbyn has done it. He's the leader of the Labour Party. 

It's worth repeating a chart I put up a couple of weeks ago on the challenge for he faces. 

He's won over the second smallest square - the dark red one. 

Next he needs to win over the little orange square - labour MPs - to be effective in Parliament. Very few of them nominated him - and there's already some evidence that the rebels are organising. The boost in authority he gets from his endorsement from activists won't last forever.

Which brings us to the 2015 Labour voters. Remember that there are chunks of these - even in their working class base - that fundamentally disagree with Corbyn on issues like immigration. He's either going to have to try and moderate to accommodate their concerns as Miliband tried, or convince them that they were wrong. This is not an easy thing to do. 

Finally, the extra voters he needs to win a majority. Fabian society analysis suggested this can't be done from the votes of existing left wingers like the greens. So the obvious conclusion is that he needs to win over Tories - another big ask for a left winger like Corbyn. Now, Corbyn supporters will tell you he can mobilise the fabled non voters into action. But there's no decent evidence I'm aware of that suggests these non voters are any more likely to vote Labour than others. And these people, by their very nature, are harder to turn out than other voters. 

Corbyn's is a remarkable achievement. But, as this chart shows, this is just the beginning.   

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

Leading anecdote is about 1972 Miner's Strike. Thanks the unions.

Calls Labour the "last line of defence against the Tories". There's only "one Labour", the "guardians of decency". 

Lots of good crowd-pleasing stuff. Nothing so far that Jeremy Corbyn would disagree with.

Ah, wait: he talks that there is no conflict between being pro-business and pro-worker. Jeremy Corbyn might apply some caveats to that.

Now talking about the "old politics". See my previous post.

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

He didn't even need to go to the final round. 50.7% after third round. Big job for him ahead.