Jeremy Corbyn pictured walking past empty seats to sit on floor for video on 'ram-packed' train

Francesca Gillett23 August 2016

Jeremy Corbyn breezed past empty seats on a train before shooting a video in which he sat on the floor claiming the carriages were "ram-packed".

The under pressure Labour leader was pictured walking through near-deserted carriages on the London to Newcastle service.

Virgin Trains owner Richard Branson released the images showing he walked past unreseved seats before shooting the campaign film.

A statement said Mr Corbyn and his team walked the full length of the train before setting up camp on the floor and filming the campaign video.

CCTV footage taken from the three-hour Virgin Trains service on August 11 also shows Mr Corbyn taking a seat around 45 minutes into the journey – once the team had finished.

Mr Corbyn, who will battle with Owen Smith in a leadership challenge, used his train journey video as part of his campaign.

While sitting on the floor Mr Corbyn told the camera: “This is a problem that many passengers face every day on the trains, commuters and long distance 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.”

Seated; Virgin Trains' CCTV footage shows Corbyn did have a seat.
Virgin Trains.

A Virgin Trains spokesperson said they would encourage Mr Corbyn to “book ahead” next time to reserve a seat – but they look forward to welcoming him on board again.

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

“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.”

The spokesperson added: “We know that some of our services on our east and west coast franchises are extremely popular, and it can be hard to find a seat.

“This usually happens in particular circumstances, for example when there’s a big sporting event, or on the first off-peak train out of London. Unfortunately we can’t do anything about cup finals or fares regulation, which could spread demand much more effectively if it was less of a blunt instrument.

“We have discussed regulation with the Government at various points over the last two decades and we’d be delighted to work with ministers if they were interested in reviewing the fares structure for long distance services, with the aim of reducing the overcrowding that can sometimes occur.

“We can, however, rely on our fantastic on-board teams to help customers whenever possible and we’re delighted they could help Jeremy in this case.”

On Twitter, people reacted calling the incident "traingate" and a "publicity stunt".

The Standard has contacted the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn's campaign team for comment.

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