The housing crisis was Sadiq Khan’s secret weapon

As Isabel Hardman wrote yesterday, many interpret Labour’s failure to fail on a bigger scale in yesterday’s election results as the worst possible result for the party.  Sadiq Khan, who had nominated Corbyn for the leadership, won comfortably in London.  Predicted to lose 150 or more council seats, by midday Labour was down a net 26 seats.    This neither puts them in an encouraging position from which to build towards the 2020 election nor signifies a disaster which might provoke Jeremy’s Corbyn’s defenestration and replacement with a more electable leader.

But the Conservatives would be very unwise to take comfort from the results. Instead they should ask themselves why Corbyn’s Labour party has not collapsed in the way they assumed it would – and why Khan has just won the mayoral race. It seems plain that Corbyn’s brand of socialism is a good deal more popular than they had given it credit.