The 46-year-old is, like Corbyn, targeting voters to the left of the party but says he is better placed to sell the message to the country and take Labour to ballot box success.
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Mr Corbyn, who is filmed reading Private Eye magazine while sat in a corner, said: “This is a problem that many passengers face every day on the trains – commuters and long-distance travellers”.
Virgin Trains has today hit back at Corbyn’s version of events – releasing CCTV footage which apparently shows the Labour leader walking past empty, unreserved seats before filming his video.
“It shows seats clearly marked as reserved and, therefore, unavailable”.
It won’t come as much as a surprise to many that Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, has backed Owen Smith in the party’s leadership contest.
However, others have leapt to his defence, claiming that they also witnessed a lack of seats, and sharing pictures of Mr Corbyn sat on the floor.
Virgin Trains released the images of the Labour leader walking past rows of empty seats and said he later returned to sit in unreserved seating. The staff on this train are absolutely brilliant, working really hard to help everybody.
A major British train operator has rejected United Kingdom opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn’s account of a train journey in a weird twist in the Labour party’s leadership race.
In response to Mr Corbyn’s statement, Virgin said: “We’re a bit puzzled why Jeremy couldn’t find unreserved seats when he boarded the train – they’re right next to him as the photo shows”.
The Labour leader chose the spot on the floor instead of upgrading to first class, it said.
Comedian David Baddiel suggested: “Is it possible that what actually happened was Jeremy “had a fall” inbetween two carriages and just couldn’t get up again?”
“However, Jeremy then went on for the next two months refusing my insistence that he speak to Thangam, indeed refusing to speak to either of us, whether directly or through the shadow cabinet, the whips, or his own office”.
“The reality is there are not enough trains, we need more of them and they’re also incredibly expensive”.
However Cllr Churchill said she is now backing Owen Smith to win the leadership of the party because Mr Corbyn has failed to “reach the wider public”.
Charles B Anthony, who filmed the original footage of Mr Corbyn on the train, said: “Corbyn wants to renationalise their business”.
The choice is between Corbyn and his challenger Owen Smith, who quit his post as the shadow work and pensions secretary amid an attempted party “coup” in June.
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Mr Corbyn said the “magic circle of decision-making” meant the views of “ordinary people” were ignored.
