by Luke James

Parliamentary Reporter

THE Labour leadership contest took a bizarre turn yesterday as a row broke out about whether Jeremy Corbyn was forced to sit on the floor of a Virgin train.

A video released last week showed Mr Corbyn crouched on the floor during a three-hour journey from London King’s Cross to Newcastle before the Labour leadership hustings event at Gateshead.

In a piece to camera about the need for public ownership, he described the train as “ram-packed.”
Now Virgin Trains have released CCTV footage from the journey which allegedly shows Mr Corbyn walking past empty seats shortly after boarding, although the seats are clearly reserved.

The company says it shows Mr Corbyn recorded the video message about 30 minutes into the journey before finding an unreserved seat at 11.43am with the help of the onboard staff.

Billionaire Sir Richard Branson, who co-owns the rail privateer with Stagecoach, posted a link to the CCTV images on his Twitter account.

A spokesman for Virgin Trains 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.”

And Mr Corbyn’s leadership rival Owen Smith tweeted: “My campaign remains on track. Proud to be genuinely standing up for ordinary people.”

But a spokesman for Mr Corbyn insisted: “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.

“Later in the journey, 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.”

And news site Beyond the Headlines contacted some of the fellow passengers that shared the floor with Mr Corbyn during the trip.

Ellen, who talked to the Labour leader in a vestibule while sat with her baby, told the site: “There were plenty of other people sitting on the floor throughout the train, it was very overcrowded and as a regular traveller I don’t find that unusual at all.

“Luckily during the journey the train did become less full and we were able to find seats, as did Jeremy, in standard class.”

Rail union TSSA’s general secretary Manuel Cortes backed the Labour leader: “Virgin are being disingenuous. Their own CCTV footage does not show empty seats. It shows seats clearly marked as reserved and, therefore, unavailable.

“No amount of spinning by Virgin will dent the people’s will to see our railways brought back into public ownership.”

lukejames@peoples-press.com