So a by election when the party in power arent exactly popular and the main opposition party loses it's deposit, it's not exactly good news, for Corbyn, is it ?

It was Richmond

The most affluent constituency in the country? What were you expecting?

Labour voters voted tactically for the Lib Dems, in order to reduce the Tory majority. This is not reflective of the troubles of the Labour party, but of the stupidity of our first past the post electoral system.

Time will tell.
Obviously Labour were never, in a million years, going to win this seat and I fully accept that.
However, whilst Corbyn is clearly very popular among Labour activists, for the population at large, he has a similar "draw" as a certain, Michael Foot and it looks very much like they (Labour) face a similar length of time in the political wilderness.
Indeed, with Scotland now ruled by the SNP, it's quite possible that we may never again see a Labour government in the UK.
At the moment, they dont even come under the title of effective opposition which, isnt good for anyone.

I'm not questioning the argument that Corbyn is not looking electorally ineffective, more just that I don't think Richmond Park is anything to do with that. The argument around Corbyn is often that what appeals to the members (which he clearly does) doesn't appeal to the electorate. However, there's actually more Labour members in Richmond Park than voted Labour there in the by-election, which is why I'm so convinced it was overwhelmingly tactical voting rather than anything else.

At one point Labour were considering not fielding a candidate to give the Lib Dems a better chance but caved in to the local members demands that they should have the option to vote for their own party.

Corbyn's politics are a sort of student union' left-wing populism, it's based on a sort of "the enemy of my enemy" schtick, so for example he can get over people actually being murderous terrorists or anti-semites or any number of harmful things as long as they self-identify as opposing ideological concept he also opposes e.g. "American imperialism" or "Neoliberalism". It is in many ways the opposite of "small c" conservative pragmatism, because the actual harm done by these "friends" is considered less than the conceptual harm that can be attributed to the "enemy ideologies". The purity of the ideology is more important than the physical manifestation, so fare example stuff should be nationalised on principle even if the actual result would be no better or possibly even worse. This plays well with a substantial minority, but the majority, including the realist "left" which most of the Parliamentary Labour Party belong to, know its juvenile rubbish and the "real world" is more complex.

Corbyn won't be the end of the Labour Party, he's got to be given a chance to fail and hope that a new (pre-Iraq War) Blair figure can be found, who can put forward a sensible platform to rebuild on. It must be remembered that hard Left "Corbynistas" need the Labour brand, there are any number of socialist factions who've going nowhere slowly for a long time with the same schtick.

Although nobody is ever likely to forgive Blair, for his part in the Iraq war and nor should they, he did recognise that it's no good having policies and principles if enough people wont vote for them.
Corbyn, in this respect, has gone backwards.
His whole ethos is to stand by his personal thoughts and principles and hope that eventually enough people will come round to his way of thinking.
With the Libdems in turmoil (apart from the Richmond win) and the Tories likely to move further right, now is the time to mop up all of the centre ground.
It may not quite fit with his ideals but, if you dont have hold of the reigns, you cant ride the horse.

Corbyn is the kind of leader I'd imagine Rick from The Young Ones to vote for.

A lot of Labour supporters voted Lib Dem to get Zac Goldsmith out, Labour ran a pointless campaign (started far too late, not enough funding for advertisement, leaflets). And the area was a lib dem stronghold for many a year.

I suppose that's why the Labour Membership voted him in, twice, hoping that he can convert those personal principles and values into realistic policies that the general electorate and also his MP's can get behind. That second bit hasn't happened yet, and doesn't look like it will do to be honest, but he'd be a massive hypocrite just like most of the others in Westminster if he did as you suggest.

Ultimately, Corbyn's election wins were also protest votes in a sense. A big 'f-you' to the career-politicians and bull**itters that most of us loathe, people voting for anti-establishment, just like other votes we've seen in recent years.

However, the Richmond by-election isn't really one to judge him on. There have though been 6 other by-elections since Corbyn was elected leader, with Labour holding 5, and the Tories holding 1, but I must have missed the 5 threads on here titled "Labour heading for power"

For many decades you had Labour representing... well labour. And the Conservatives representing capital.

Progressive/liberal vs conservative/traditional was a secondary issue. The struggle was for economic power.

Now the working class has changed. Labour doesn't seem capable of representing their economic interests, and many of them are not very interested in the things that Labour has found to think about instead.

The Tories are, perhaps in the longer-term, facing a similar problem balancing the priorities of their economic liberals (powerful) and societal traditionalists (numerous).

Possibly we're seeing a realignment of politics along cultural rather than economic lines. In our electoral system, that would require a major realignment by both the traditional parties of power, or they'll go the way of the Whigs.