Jeremy Corbyn, the veteran campaigner perceived by the media as being of the far left, was just elected leader of the UK Labour party with 60% of the vote, winning outright on the first ballot. It is the most astonishing political event I can remember.
Corbyn is a very similar personality to Bernie Sanders in the US. Both are quite old for politicians (Corbyn is 66, Sanders 74). Both have lived outside the political mainstream and have had the same essentially the same ultra-consistency of message over the years. Both seem to be totally incorruptible.
Interestingly both of them have precisely the opposite problem. Corbyn's leadership election was a walkover: his big challenge will be to actually win a general election and take control of government where Labour lags behind the ruling conservative party in the polls. Sanders however still has an enormous challenge to beat Hilary to Democratic candidate (he's 20 points behind), but if he can do that he beats all Republican candidates in hypothetical match-ups.
Something is clearly changing in the world. The Sanders and Corbyn developments came completely out of the blue and surprised the political establishment and the media, whose feeble attempts to stop both bandwagons are having no effect as yet.
.