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- Traingate is the popular name given to a 2016 disputed incident between Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour Party, and the train operating company Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) and its minority shareholder Richard Branson. During August 2016, a video was released of Corbyn sitting on the floor of a VTEC train while campaigning during a leadership challenge by Owen Smith. Corbyn said the train was "ram-packed" and used this to support his policy to reverse the 1990s privatisation of the railways of Great Britain, which created private operators such as VTEC. Controversy developed when Virgin released CCTV images a week later appearing to show Corbyn walking past available seats, leading to accusations that the incident had been staged for political gain, which Corbyn denied, saying "Yes, I did walk through the train. Yes, I did look for two empty seats together so I could sit down with my wife, to talk to her. That wasn't possible so I went to the end of the train." Reactions were mixed, with commentators finding both support and damage for all sides involved. Analysis by a media outlet paid by the reelection bid of Jeremy Corbyn in the then-Labour leadership contest of the CCTV footage later claimed to show that the unreserved seats in some of the images were occupied and that other passengers also sat in the vestibules. (en)
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