Corbyn election win 'impossible' after Labour's crushing Copeland defeat

Labour met with triumph and disaster within the space of an hour in the early hours of this morning.

At first there was a small triumph for Jeremy Corbyn in holding at bay UKIP's surge into his party's heartland in Stoke. But, minutes later, came the terrible loss of the staunch Labour seat of Copelandto the governing Conservatives.

It is the first by-election loss from Opposition to a sitting Government since the early Thatcher years. In reality, the first of this type in over half a century.

It has not happened in a seat with a comfortable Opposition majority.

The result in the Cumbrian constituency, which has been Labour since before the war, saw Conservative Trudy Harrison elected as MP.

It renders an election victory for Jeremy Corbyn seemingly impossible. Labour on this sort of result is heading for fewer than 200 seats.

A Labour Party heading for a majority would be piling on votes in a seat such as this, not losing it.

Yes, Mr Corbyn's historic lack of support for the nuclear industry at Sellafield played a part, but the routine Labour NHS crisis campaign fell short.

In Stoke though, Labour held off UKIP and left in tatters the gamble of leader Paul Nuttall.

UKIP saw only a small improvement in a town the new leader hoped to rechristen the Brexit capital of Britain.

It should have been the most fertile territory to show off Mr Nuttall's pitch for the party to replace Labour in working class Midlands and northern towns.

Labour campaigners managed to paint Mr Nuttall as a Brexit carpetbagger. He may struggle to regain momentum.

After his election disappointment, he insisted he was "not going anywhere" and that there was "a lot more to come from us".

"We cut their (Labour's) majority in half," he said.

"We've unified the party like never before. We'll go forward now - UKIP's time will come - this will happen."

What is the point of UKIP if it can't win in places such as Stoke, asked one Tory MP. But a version of that question is also applicable to the new Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, Gareth Snell.

He praised Mr Corbyn and told me the Labour leader could win the next general election - that was just before the Copeland result.

It was bad news for UKIP in Stoke, and as bad for Labour in Copeland.

The Prime Minister is left sitting pretty, with her majority increased by one, while Mr Corbyn might toast Tristram Hunt for having resigned and offering him a chance to win one and lose one.

But the chances of Labour replacing the Conservatives in government seem even more remote on this evidence.