Virgin CCTV refutes Corbyn’s ‘no seats’ train claim

A major political spat erupted on August 23, after Virgin chief Sir Richard Branson produced CCTV to dismiss Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s claims that he had to sit on the floor of a ‘ram-packed’ King’s Cross-Newcastle East Coast train on August 11.

Corbyn had made the headlines by shooting a video while sitting on a Mk 4 vestibule floor, and using the headline-grabbing pictures to criticise the rail industry in order to reinforce and further his demands for rail nationalisation.

But Branson’s on-train CCTV apparently shows Corbyn’s party walking past empty unreserved and reserved seats just seven minutes after departure from King’s Cross, en route to a vestibule at the far end of the train where Corbyn sat on the floor to shoot his video, which reportedly took around half an hour.

The CCTV then shows Corbyn taking a seat in Coach H around 45 minutes after departure, which he occupied for the remainder of the journey to Newcastle.

In his video, Corbyn says: “This is a problem that many passengers face every day on the trains - commuters and longdistance travellers. Today this train is completely ram-packed. The staff on the train are absolutely brilliant, working really hard to help everybody. The reality is there’s not enough trains, we need more of them.”

A VTEC spokesman said: “We have to take issue with the idea that Mr Corbyn wasn’t able to be seated on the service, as this clearly wasn’t the case.”

An immediate and rapidly-gathering social media storm on the afternoon of August 23 featured defiant Corbyn supporters refusing to believe the CCTV evidence, and angrily dismissing Branson’s claims as a conspiracy against the Labour leader.

Corbyn himself remained silent on the issue, with no personal statement by him for the rest of the day. He entered a rally in Newham that evening by a back door and was reluctant to discuss the matter from the stage.

However, Corbyn spokesmen first insisted that no seats were available on the train because they were either reserved “or had luggage on them”, before later claiming that Branson was “absolutely petrified” by the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister renationalising the railways.

They also claimed that Standard Class seats only became available after a family was upgraded to First Class. ■ National newspapers widely led with the story on their front pages on August 24. Most were scathingly critical, with headlines varying from “first class hypocrisy” to a stunt that backfired. Only the Guardian was in any way supportive of the Labour leader, reporting that Corbyn had “fended off” Branson’s attack.