A recent survey claimed around a third of the electorate would be more likely to vote for Labour with Corbyn in charge. Most support nationalising the railways and the energy companies, keeping the NHS public, are against military intervention in Syria as they were against Iraq, and even the IMF argues against austerity. Not only does Corbyn represent the views of a sizeable percentage of the population, he actually resides in the majority view on a number of issues, putting him in stark contrast to almost anyone else in the two major parliamentary parties.

Of course, public perception changes, and that is something else you have to factor in. Should the leader of the opposition take positions against austerity, against military intervention, against widespread outsourcing, it is likely that more of the public will be convinced by views which have until now been largely kept out of mainstream discourse. That's exemplified no better than by Farage, who brought immigration and Europe in to the mainstream.

I wish all of the above was true, but it just isn't , is it? He's a joke, even a proper lefty like me can see that. He'll pick up the tiny green and tusc vote, but. Labour will lose voters to the Tories and Lib Dems.

A recent survey claimed around a third of the electorate would be more likely to vote for Labour with Corbyn in charge. Most support nationalising the railways and the energy companies, keeping the NHS public, are against military intervention in Syria as they were against Iraq, and even the IMF argues against austerity. Not only does Corbyn represent the views of a sizeable percentage of the population, he actually resides in the majority view on a number of issues, putting him in stark contrast to almost anyone else in the two major parliamentary parties.

Of course, public perception changes, and that is something else you have to factor in. Should the leader of the opposition take positions against austerity, against military intervention, against widespread outsourcing, it is likely that more of the public will be convinced by views which have until now been largely kept out of mainstream discourse. That's exemplified no better than by Farage, who brought immigration and Europe in to the mainstream.

To suggest that UKIP 'floundered' at the last election is ludicrous as well: they got about 3 million more votes than in 2010, but more significantly they steered the Tories to the right on the issues of immigration and still threaten to split the party apart over Europe. Were there to be a proper voting system in this country rather than FPTP, chances are they'd be in government with the Tories now.

Not true? The whole first paragraph is pretty much exclusively factual. I can get the links out for you if you fancy

I'm not a labour member, and have never voted for Labour in my life. I'm still very much in two minds as to whether I would vote for Corbyn were he to be elected; the reason that I'm sticking up for him so vigorously is because of the soothsaying which the vast majority of people I encounter seem to take pleasure in with regards to Corbyn. There is a fatalistic acceptance among so many people across the political spectrum that Corbyn will inevitably lose, and I think it's a view which is being fuelled almost exclusively through a very narrow right-wing analysis of political history.

For example, everyone is harking back to the 83 election as proof that radical politics can't win, but what about the 74 election, where Labour's manifesto was arguably more radical than the one Foot lost with? Equally, why aren't people recognising the significance of the SDP split which fractured the Labour vote?

Or you could point to the fact that the reemergence of the left is occurring throughout the Western world, and is achieving incredible success, be it in Scotland, Spain, Greece or New York. People could acknowledge that we have an incredible brew of variables which is causing this rise, namely a rejection of austerity, a fatigue with foreign interventionism and an anger at growing inequality. History never repeats itself because everything is constantly changing, everything is constantly new.

I'm not saying he will win, I understand it would be an incredible achievement should he do so. But I know for absolute certain, and I can back it up with as many historical parallels as you wish (Obama, Mitterand, Syriza) that prophesying inevitable defeat is ludicrous. Believing that myth is to accept in full the version of reality and public attitudes created by those on the right.