The Truth Behind Traingate

I think I should start questioning my daughters veracity. She was sent open tickets for a business meeting last week. Bad women - obviously

Which 'press' and how did it change?

Did he lie? "He was reported as saying" isn't quite the same as "he said' you know. You know even year 6 children can read a paper and distinguish facts from misinformation and hearsay

If there were plenty of seats on the train, why did the staff have to offer Corbyn and his party first class seats, which he turned down?

If there were plenty of seats on the train, why did the staff have to move a family up to first class to make room for Corbyn and his party of five?

What was reported in the press at the time was Branson's version of events, photos without timelines.

I actually don't know what your last post means trisher, I afraid.

All the press. I'm surprised you can't remember it.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-train-explanation-change_uk_57bd97afe4b0f78b2b4c727a

What Corbyn said doesn't change in that article. More information is given over the days but it is fundamentally just as it started.

So what does that prove? Perhaps you should have read it through first.

You now appear to be accusing him and his team of giving additional information as he was questioned about what happened.

It hasn't changed over a year, has it. As I said, my son and his wife had to stand from Durham to York last week because their booked seats had been taken by an elderly couple.
Why is that not the issue? Virgin takes the money, takes the bookings and doesn't supply the goods.
It didn't last year, it didn't this year.

A diversion.

With regard to Branson 'making squillions' from that line, oddly enough, Stagecoach, which runs the East Coast line, in which Virgin has a 10% stake, is making a loss on it

www.google.co.uk/search?q=Stage+coach%2C+east+coast%2Closs&oq=Stage+coach%2C+east+coast%2Closs&aqs=chrome..69i57.17874j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Take your pick of the news stories.

I don't quite understand what is going wrong when for the 5 years that it was 'nationalised' it returned a healthy profit to the Treasury. I 'think' that they're blaming Brexit, terrorist attacks in Manchester (which isn't on the EC line), and cheap fuel for their losses (though none of the news stories I read set it out particularly clearly). Though accounts of overcrowding (from people other than Corbyn) don't seem to quite fit their story.

They also mention the Hitachi trains, which are being built up here, but are not being used on the East Coast Mainline.

Perhaps Stagecoach are losing out because they have 90%, but the livery is Virgin.
I know people who will not travel on Virgin, and there are plenty of other lines to use.

dj, the fact that your son and his wife had to stand for their journey was simply because they chose not to ask whoever was occupying their seats to move, which is hardly the fault of the train company! Had J.C, who was going to a pre arranged event, organized his diary bearing in mind that event, (like most organised people would,) and booked his tickets, none of that fiasco would have happened. Was this deliberate knowing, as we all do, that the trains can be overcrowded?! Why did his party have to be found seats as they were travelling on the off chance?, why didn't they stand till they reached their destination like the rest of us who choose not to book seats? Why make a fuss when others don't? Why were they so important that seats had to be found for them and not for others?! Publicity stunt?!!

When JC was sitting on the floor where (apart from the photographer) were the rest of his group? Still standing? Did they, like sensible people, accept the seats offered in first class? Did they find other seats spread about?

The TRUTH about this story is mud thick, complex. The "new" evidence merely thickens the mud. What's obvious is that what came out in the press at the time was supposed to buck JC up or to buck him down (off a high horse image in head). It back-fired as one might expect an amateur put up job to back-fire.

Meanwhile supporters of what's in the OP are desperately trying to to achieve this goal: to decide what is the truth and to impose it on everyone. The effort doesn't seem to be working too well. This could have something to do with JC's unpopularity being as strong as his popularity.

The whole thing, and that includes JC, does have a high entertainment value if nothing else ?

Next time, the story boarders should get all of JC's group to sit in a circle outside the train loos and hold a pow-wow.

No?

Disappointed face.

The point seems to be being missed here. Had this not been a high profile figure like Corbyn, and say for instance, just a group of friends travelling together then it is highly likely they couldn't have found seats together or seats at all.

I recently travelled from Birmingham to Glasgow. One coach was for those who hadn't reserved seats. It was full.

There was hassle in my coach as people got on at various stations and ousted those who were sitting in their reserved seats. Families with children were then trying to find places to sit where they could be reasonably close together. And yes, people were sitting on the floor and even operating the toilet doors for other passengers from that position, which I found a bit embarrassing.

This was a X-Country service. So if the point being made was that, unless you book a seat you will have problems, then that point is valid.

No it wasn't, niggly. If my son had asked a couple of people to move, that couple would have had to stand - unless of course, they sat on each others knees. Try not to let your dislike of me affect your common sense.

I am pleased my son showed compassion for a couple older than his mum.

It doesn't get over the fact that there were not enough seats on the train. That is the fault of the train company. They know how many seats they have. They oversell tickets and expect some people to have to stand. It wasn't rush hour, and it wasn't the weekend, so no excuse.
We got on one end of the train, and like Corbyn walked down to where our seats were. We never passed a couple of empty seats together.
We did pass lots of people standing in doorways with their luggage.
It's a problem of Virgin trains wanting to make more money out of the travelling public.

Well said, Anya.
I don't think it's good enough for people to say you should either reserve seats or expect to stand.
Stand all the way from London to Newcastle?
Coach companies aren't allowed to do that. Why should trains be allowed to?

It depends what time you travel.

My main grouse with Virgin trains is that they didn't engage somebody sensible, like a mum, to design the luggage space. There is never enough even when the train is nothing like full. You'd think it would cross the minds of long distance train carriage designers that there's a clue about potential luggage requirements in the phrase "long distance". Seems not ?

The arguments being used here to try an prove 'Corbyn lied' are worryingly the arguments that despots and their followers have used for centuries. Never mind the truth or facts or logic let's just play on peoples prejudices to prove we are right.

We now have Niggly suggesting that if a train is full and there are not enough seats for everyone but a someone gets on and sits in the seat they have reserved, thus asking someone else to stand, the train in somehow less overcrowded.

She now repeats the idea that, had JC booked a seat the train would be less full too.

Baggs then adds her prejudice; the sort that attacks the person for who he is, that smacks of the prejudice of blaming Jews for being Jews and therefore causing the problems for some in Germany, blaming immigrants for being who they are and therefore to blame for the problems in parts of UK or blaming the people of colour for the problems in the USA.

Bags attacks those trying to stick to the facts of "desperately trying ... to impose" facts, logic and truth on "everyone".

There is only one purpose to this. If you use propaganda to demonise one group - in this case a possible opposition, if you go on trying to prove, against logic, against truth, that it's leader is a liar, for no greater reason than he is the person he is, it can only be so that people will not depose those at whose feet the problems actually lie - the current government. Distract people with the thought that Jews attack the state, immigrants do things that make us poorer, that the person of colour is to blame for all the ill, just find someone to demonise and they will stop looking for the real causes. So we see these attack the leader of the opposition using spurious arguments intended to show that he is a lesser person.

You wish to keep this government in power whatever they do and will use any means to do so, even going to the extent you have on here to demonise this person.

Standing on trains or sitting on floors of trains is not new. I was doing it between Preston and Dundee (well, prolly Edinburgh, actually; the Dundee trains were usually allright) back in the mid-seventies when the railways were a nationalised company. It was in the early eighties, I seem to recall, that booking one's seat(s) became more common.

Pity Corbyn hadn't just videotaped a packed train instead of pulling that stunt .

Nice try, gg. What I actually want is a better leader of the Labour Party, someone who'd make a good Prime Minister. Thinking JC wouldn't make a good PM is not prejudice, it's a difference of opinion. I don't accuse those who disagree with me of prejudice. You might like to try not doing so yourself.

I don't think I've ever said that Corbyn lied with regard to this story (or anything else). What I have said is that I think the truth about the train journey has been muddied. I have not said by whom because I don't know, but it's one of those tales about which possibly the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, will never be known. I can live with that. Seems some people can't.

Meanwhile, whatever the truth, the story does not reflect well on Corbyn and some of those who travelled with him. That, to me, is the pertinent truth. His team bloody well should have booked seats in advance. Not doing so was incompetent.

Please note, this is not saying Corbyn was incompetent on this issue. I do think he was being a bit of a showman sitting on the floor and getting his photo taken and then put in the public sphere though. Showman politicking. It's what a lot, possibily most, politicians do. It's how they roll.