First of all it is necessary in order to come to any useful conclusion to accept that there is a change of political weather in progress which makes all the rules that politicians and commentators have been using for the last thirty five years useless and misleading. When the weather changes the rules change. There are very few politicians who pre-date the Thatcher era and no commentators. So the wisdom that Labour must win hundreds of seats if it is to stand a chance of winning in 2020 is a fallacy. Milliband won loads, 800 in fact, in 2012 and lost in 2015. He also led in the polls up until the final year but he still lost.
Corbyn has to fight on two fronts. He has to fight the Tories and UKIP in the country and his parliamentary party in his backyard. All were gunning for him. All told each other gleeful stories of the losses which would pile up as the votes were counted and then the coup could be mounted. In fact there were hardly any losses, two parliamentary bye elections were won, all the at risk councils in the south were held, the Tories were not just defeated in London but beaten and while the Conservative vote fell by three per cent on the 2015 tally, Labour went up four per cent. That is a significant tactical victory with great strategic potential. Because all this was achieved in England. And 2020 for Labour has to be won in England.
Scotland for Labour in now a write off for a generation. The SNP is now the socialist party for Scotland and it contains the former Labour supporters who walked away from New Labour because it sought power over principle, abandoned the working class, became London centric and Thatcherite and worst of all was led mostly by Scots. This led to a sense of betrayal and anger far greater than would have been the case if it were just an English party. Which is what Labour is now becoming, with a branch in Wales which still commands support because it is left of centre and never really embraced the glitzy nostrums of New Labour. That is why the left leaning Labour of Corbyn did so much better in England and especially in the south, and why although it cannot yet see it because it lacks the wits, the Tory party faces its greatest strategic threat since 1945, as the following four years advance to the day of its reckoning. Because the wind of change now blows left. The centre is a sterile mud patch poisoned by greed and exploitation of which most of the young and increasing numbers everywhere have had more than enough.