"... I had to sit on the floor and bemoan the state of privatised railways to a journalist. There were actually seats I could use though." - Jeremy Corbyn.
Except there weren't. Virgin were forced eventually to release cctv footage of the carriage with 'empty seats' Corbyn walked past and it turned out that they had kids or people who had their heads down on the still picture - but on the video you can see them pop up from time to time. So Corbyn, and the other passengers who complained on that service were correct after all. Branson and co. (supporter of the Tories by pure coincidence), was not.
Richard Branson a "supporter of the tories"? On what evidence?
Has he, or any of his companies, ever donated to the party? Has he ever endorsed a candidate?
As far as I can work out he tends to avoid party politics. Where he has made utterances that can be deemed political he's shown to be centrist at worst. Supporting remaining in the
EU» . Favours a welfare state.
As for the seats. I agree that Richard Branson was selective in the footage he released, and that the footage released some 7 months later, after a Subject Access Request by the journalist accompanying Jeremy Corbyn, did show more clearly that there may not have been seats available for Jeremy and his wife to sit together.
Did Richard Branson enter the debate because he is firmly a tory? I very much doubt it. I strongly suspect his overriding concern was protecting brand Virgin. I also suspect he'd do that if Virgin was being criticised by
any politician, left, right or centre.
Largely agree, however I don't think threatening to sue the NHS does much for "Brand Virgin" and we also had the recent Daily Mail debacle.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/28/nhs-pays-virgin-threatens-sue-losing-contract/Generally speaking businessmen such as Branson etc will swim with the tide politically, especially where they have Business interests in the public sector - pragmatism comes before principles.
Common sense however would suggest that he and very few others in his position would have much time for Corbyn.
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