UK Labour's leadership vote closes with Corbyn favourite

Voting ends on Sept.10 in the leadership contest for Britain's main opposition Labour party after a campaign dominated by the shock popularity of radical left candidate Jeremy Corbyn, who looks set to win.

Corbyn was attracting 53 percent support from those intending to vote, according to the most recent opinion poll from YouGov in mid-August, in a race whose result will be announced on Sept.12.
 
His victory seems barely in doubt.    

Corbyn, 66, is closer to European anti-austerity movements like Greece's Syriza and Spain's Podemos than Tony Blair.
 
He has become the darling of youthful and elderly Labour supporters as well as the powerful trade unions, all tired of the centrist policies of senior Labour figures like Blair, prime minister from 1997 to 2007.
 
Corbyn holds his final rally on Sept.10 in his home constituency in north London before a sell-out crowd, as has often been the case, after the ballots close at 1100 GMT.
 
Grey-haired and with a close-cropped beard, often sporting sandals and looking like a retired teacher, he is neither a great orator nor a charismatic leader.
 
But faced with his campaign, the other three candidates -- Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, all polished fortysomethings advocating more centrist policies -- have struggled to galvanise support and Corbyn was 6/1 on with bookmakers as polls were about to close.
 
"He has triumphed because he represents a rejection of conventional politics and also because Labour's mainstream candidates failed to inspire excitement or hope," Andrew Harrop, general secretary of left-wing think-tank the Fabian Society, told AFP.
 
Ironically, many commentators blamed Labour's defeat under leader Ed...