NHS renationalisation plan? No, it’s more about Corbyn and THAT train.

Last Updated: August 24, 2016By
Exasperated: Jeremy Corbyn thinks the future of the NHS is more important than quibbling over seat allocations on a train. This Blog agrees with him.

Exasperated: Jeremy Corbyn thinks the future of the NHS is more important than quibbling over seat allocations on a train. This Blog agrees with him.

No wonder Jeremy Corbyn got angry when a BBC reporter asked him about that train ride yet again.

He had called a press conference to discuss his plan to cut private companies out of the National Health Service – a move that some of us think is extremely important for the future health of the people of the UK.

But some BBC goon (does anybody know who it was?) saw fit to drag him back to this ridiculous and now wholly-debunked non-story.

“We’ve called a press conference on the NHS and I really hoped… that you would be able to find a question on the NHS,” Mr Corbyn told the reporter, who was determined to be persistent with his irrelevance. “But if you can’t, we’ll take another one.”

Anyone looking at the CCTV of Mr Corbyn passing apparently-empty seats will see children popping their heads out of the side, into the aisle – so they clearly weren’t empty after all. Obviously the reserved seats were marked and we all saw those.

But the BBC reporter, determined to wring every scrap of nothing from this non-story, asked him why he did not sit in those seats.

“I’m glad you watched the CCTV so carefully,” said Mr Corbyn, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s a really important issue this; absolutely crucial to the future of the whole nation and the NHS.”

He was quite right to put the reporter in his place. The future of healthcare in this country is far more important than an argument that Mr Corbyn had already won –

Undoubtedly the reporter would have been happier if Mr Corbyn had denied his principles and upgraded to First Class, or perhaps sat on a child’s lap, but that merely demonstrates the trivialisation of BBC News.

-and the BBC has already blotted its copy book in this regard. Some of us remember the non-coverage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, that imposed private provision on the NHS.

Coverage of the pledge to renationalise is almost non-existent on the BBC’s ‘Politics’ page, whereas the train silliness is prominent as the second lead story. It demonstrates BBC policy clearly and that is why our verdict should be:

Mr Corbyn was right to give this reporter short shrift.

At his press conference, Mr Corbyn said: “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.”

He said the train manager, “who was a very nice gentleman”, had offered him an upgrade to First Class, which he had declined.

“He then, very kindly, did find some seats and, after 42 minutes, I went back through the train to the seats that had been allocated.”

Source: Jeremy Corbyn angered by train seat row questions – BBC News

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16 Comments

  1. Roland Laycock August 24, 2016 at 12:08 pm - Reply

    Turn peoples heads away from what people want and that a good NHS not it the hands of the privat sector that is milking it

  2. David August 24, 2016 at 2:57 pm - Reply

    Who said the Beeb wasn’t a slave to the tories? But the Cameron government and the oafish Whittingdale certainly put the frighteners onto the BBC. It’s not much different from the Daily Mail. In fact Greg Philo, of the Glasgow University Media Group, complained about the BBC and it’s various agendas around 25 years ago. Even then, Philo criticised the the Beeb’s right wing bias.

  3. Hairyloon August 24, 2016 at 4:04 pm - Reply

    You are too quick to use the term “thoroughly debunked”: just because you have posted a challenge to the point on your website does not make it debunked and certainly not thoroughly so.
    I understand this argument is still live, but TBBH I really don’t care: it is a total non-story.

    But the NHS isn’t (a non story). So perhaps you can suggest why Labour were not more supportive of Caroline Lucas’ NHS Reinstatement Bill?

    • Mike Sivier August 24, 2016 at 11:58 pm - Reply

      I think Caroline Lucas has already done so in a letter to The Guardian. I was going to do an article; maybe I’ll dig it out and see if I can.
      You’re right, the train furore IS a non-story – and probably a ‘dead cat’.
      You’re wrong (I reckon), the Virgin story has been thoroughly debunked, in that there isn’t a single part of the company’s argument that hasn’t been rebutted.

  4. mohandeer August 24, 2016 at 5:27 pm - Reply

    And there was me thinking this JC was just too nice to be a PM. Excellent rebuttal from him, Iv’e never known him to be so sarcastic in response to such stupidity. I guess the BBC reporter didn’t grasp the importance of a discussion of the future of our NHS, – but he might now. Bloody glad I wasn’t the idiot making a fool of myself. However, there is a darker side to this which Noam Chomsky has explored and which Kitty Sue Jones did justice too. The dead cat scenario in which corporate owned media make a lot of noise about irrelevancies over and over in order to deflect the populace from the real issues.(Not that I don’t have sympathy for a dead cat)

  5. Rik August 24, 2016 at 8:47 pm - Reply

    Good job JC You are a Legend
    & a Big Thank You. ..

  6. Julie Knights August 24, 2016 at 8:48 pm - Reply

    Meanwhile the Tories pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act, but Traingate is much more important!

  7. Christine Cullen August 24, 2016 at 11:01 pm - Reply

    The reporter was Darren McCaffrey, Sky News. Stated by Iain Dale on Sky Newsaper Review this evening.

    • Mike Sivier August 24, 2016 at 11:49 pm - Reply

      Ah!
      Apologies to the BBC, then.
      I wonder if Sky are suing because Auntie’s used their reporter’s question?

      • Kenneth Billis August 25, 2016 at 12:17 am - Reply

        I’m sure James Harding has persuaded Sky to hold off on this occasion.

      • Christine Cullen August 25, 2016 at 12:23 am - Reply

        ha ha! I’m more interested in seeing Virgin get sued over this data protection issue :-)

    • Paul Ward August 25, 2016 at 7:15 am - Reply

      http://news.sky.com/story/xx-10550047

      McCaffrey on a horse so high he’s probably got a nosebleed.

  8. David Woods August 25, 2016 at 9:13 am - Reply

    At last, a proper reply to a pointless (and irrelevant) question! Well Done Jeremy!

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