War of words erupts over Corbyn train seat claims

Seats were available on the train in which Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was filmed sitting on the floor, says Virgin Trains.

But the MP’s leadership campaign has hit back at the claims Film footage released to the media showed Mr Corbyn sitting on the floor of a three-hour Virgin Trains service from London to Newcastle claiming it was “ram-packed”.

CCTV footage taken from the train on August 11 shows Mr Corbyn and his team walked past empty, unreserved seats in coach H before walking through the rest of the train to the far end, where his team sat on the floor and started filming.

A Virgin Trains spokesperson said: “Our people deliver first-rate customer service day after day and we’d like to thank Jeremy Corbyn for highlighting this with the media.

“He’s also right to point out the need to introduce more trains on our route – that’s why we’re introducing a brand new fleet of 65 Azuma trains from 2018, which will increase seating capacity out of King’s Cross by 28% at peak times.

“But 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.”

But Mr Corbyn’s campaign team issued a statement repeating its version of events: “When Jeremy boarded the train he was unable to find unreserved seats, so he sat with other passengers in the corridor who were also unable to find a seat.

“Seats became available after a family were upgraded to first class, and Jeremy and the team he was travelling with were offered the seats by a very helpful member of staff.”