Deary me.... his judgement was suspect based on his performance to date but he's raised the bar again on public perception of his incompetence with this latest act of stupidity.

I'm guessing he was persuaded to do this by one or more of his entourage travelling with him as a great media opportunity?

If they had thought it through then maybe it could have been a success.

From what video evidence I've seen there were clearly empty seats available on that train both reserved and unreserved as he walked by them, but not enough available close enough to seat him and his companions together - however if he had booked in advance he could have reserved a section of seats, so no fault by Virgin on that score.

Apparently other passengers chose to sit on the floor by the exit doors too... Corbyn should have engaged them in conversation and negotiated with the Guard to upgrade them to 1st class BEFORE recording his cringe worthy video that was misleading about the situation he faced and the way he dealt with it. By engaging fellow travelers and the Guard he would have shown leadership and problem solving skills as well as a bit of empathy.

Instead he confirmed yet again that he doesn't possess any qualities that would satisfy the public's requirements for a statesmanlike leader of our country who could cope in a crisis and worse he has shown himself up as a liar and easily led by his companions without thinking through the consequences.

Richard Branson was fully justified in exposing Corbyn as a liar and opportunist - after all, Virgin staff did offer to upgrade him and his companions to first class which Corbyn refused to accept and yet Corbyn allowed this fake video to be released for us all to see which was attempting to unfairly defame the Virgin brand and make a political point about nationalising the railways.

You'd think this would now hand the Labour leadership contest to his opponent Owen Smith but he made himself look a prat this morning by calling for a 2nd referendum and/or General Election to ratify Brexit before we invoke article 50 and formally leave the EU.... Thereby p1ssing off over a third of Labour voters that voted leave as well as stiffening the resolve of leave supporters generally (over 50% of the electorate) never to trust Labour to carry out their wishes!

Smith also referred to Corbyn as 'some Lunatic' at a rally yesterday but tried to distance himself from the comment on R4 Today this morning.

The bookies go Corbyn 1/7 and Smith 11/2

The Labour Party is as shambolic as Dad's Army right now, good for neither use nor ornament.

Look at the state of the polls...

[Link]

The Tories are way out in front and the gap widening day by day - Labour should be in that position at this stage of the election cycle.

The Unions, Momentum and SWP have their heads in the sand about Corbyn's popularity. Yes he's popular with them and hard line left thinking Labour stalwarts, but the voting public despise him and even ridicule him.... and not at the behest of the right wing media.... they judge his actions on their merits and conclude he is a dangerous buffoon and do not trust him.

Trouble is, the lasting damage he has inflicted on Labour's standing with the voting public generally makes it hard for their party ever to recover from this and they will struggle to mount a serious challenge for power ever again. They are already dead in Scotland.

I thought you'd left.

Annoying that this has totally deflected from the fact that the cost and level of service of our train network is ridiculously bad, especially when compared with other large economies.

I don't think that criticism would be reserved for the youth of the Labour movement I'm afraid.

I initially thought that the solution for Labour would be to accept when Corbyn wins the leadership election, grumble a bit but try and rally around him until he loses the GE and his supporters are forced to admit it wasn't only a right wing conspiracy that he couldn't win a general election, it was just reality.

But I am becoming increasingly concerned (and it is concerning because the country needs decent political opposition, at the very least because it drives on a government to better things which the current administration needs as it flounders so badly) that it won't be enough. They're all too entrenched and they can't let go. It is just going to be bloody.

Edited by OknotOK (23 Aug 2016 2.15pm)