Big message from #Traingate: Virgin/Branson don’t think Corbyn’s got a remote chance of ever making it to Number 10
Virgin wouldn’t have been so emboldened if they’d thought JC was ever going to be PM
Ed Miliband fmr advisor Matt Lazo: "If Virgin thought Labour was going to win & took Labour seriously, they wouldn't have released this"
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) August 23, 2016
TIMES: Rail company accuses Corbyn of dishonesty #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/LmeaY2e175
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) August 23, 2016
Huge coverage overnight of the Mr. Corbyn’s little affair on the train to Newcastle and I thought the comment on Newnight by the ex-adviser to EdM sums it up neatly. The CCTV footage from the train would not have been released by the politically astute Virgin company if they had thought that there was any chance at all that this was about someone who could at some stage become PM.
Virgin, which is all about branding and image which it takes very seriously, clearly doesn’t think that bashing Corbyn is going to hurt it in any way.
This was about the political weakness of the the LAB leader and the danger for him is that it will linger. The former LAB pollster, Deborah Mattinson summed up the political damage in this quote on Newsnight.
Britain Thinks' @debmattinson on Corbyn and #Traingate: "He's put himself above tacky media opportunities, yet here he is playing it"
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) August 23, 2016
Whether it’ll have any impact on the current leadership election I doubt. It will simply reinforce the pro-Corbyn and and anti-Corbyn factions within the party.