Since the operation of Britain’s railways was privatized in 1995 they have ended up costing the taxpayer twice as much to run, in real terms. Fare increases have ended up costing commuters on average 23% more, again in real terms. But the real issue, the real issue, is: did Jeremy Corbyn get a seat that one time?
Of course that isn’t the real issue. But Richard Branson has potentially broken the law to try and make everyone think it is.
To recap in brief: Corbyn released a video of himself sat on the floor of a packed Virgin train on August 11th saying “this is a problem many commuters face”. On August 23rd, Virgin Trains put out a statement saying that Corbyn was wrong and there were plenty of seats, implying that he was politically posturing. So then Corbyn’s team put out a statement saying he only got a seat after people were moved around in the train. Branson then tweeted a link to somewhat vague CCTV footage and said Corbyn “walked past empty unreserved seats then filmed claim train was ‘ram-packed'”, which is now being wrangled over by journalists and roving bands of Twitter warriors whose interpretation of the footage is based entirely on whether or not they like Jeremy Corbyn.
Britain’s post-Thatcher entrepreneur worship runs deep
The vapid priorities of a boring and unhelpful national media mean that journalists are happy to indulge in a loud and energetic quest to get to the bottom of this tedious sideshow and discover the truth of the mysterious train footage, and in doing so set aside or drown out actual investigative work on the impact of privatization. Whether or not it turns out Corbyn is telling the truth, Branson wins anyway because he has transformed minor public scrutiny of his own interests into massive public scrutiny of someone who is a threat to those interests. Corbyn’s best hope now is to come out of it without being branded a liar; meanwhile his original intent – to turn public pressure on our ridiculously inefficient privatized rail network – has already flopped out.
It’s obvious that the Labour leader was politically posturing (which, to be fair, is his job), and the unclean nature of the facts means that a media already hostile to him is going to come down on him like a ton of bricks. While everyone focuses on demolishing Corbyn’s priestly persona thanks to his inability to resist feeding the media easy ammunition, Richard Branson slinks away relatively unscathed, coming out as the more trustworthy combatant despite his release of the CCTV footage being potentially illegal. Britain’s post-Thatcher entrepreneur worship runs deep.
As a result, in an hours-long gap where nobody has been able to figure out what the footage actually depicts, the BBC and Channel 4 are now throwing out headlines on how Corbyn found their #traingate questions at a press conference about the NHS annoying.
Branson not only siphons profit from a taxpayer-funded healthcare system, he may also be avoiding tax on that profit
The NHS is a salient topic here because Sir Richard doesn’t just profit from our railways, he also makes a tidy killing from our taxpayer-funded healthcare system. Virgin Care runs NHS contracts worth over £500 million, and their corporate structure has been found to include the use of tax havens. This means that Richard Branson not only siphons profit from a taxpayer-funded system that used to not bleed money out to the private sector, he may also be avoiding tax on that profit. Which wouldn’t exist without taxpayers stumping up for it in the first place.
The National Health Service has been undergoing a process of piecemeal privatisation since 2010, during which time a growing staff shortage crisis has created concerns that patients’ lives are being put at risk. This makes Branson’s claim that his 7-year tax exile in the British Virgin Islands (no really) is to “look after my health” seem more than a little out of touch with the patients he’s happily ripping off.
Regarding Virgin’s railway ventures, meanwhile, Guardian journalist Aditya Chakrabortty pointed out earlier this year that Branson “like[s] to move into industries sheltered from too much competition, pull subsidies out of taxpayers and then cash out.” Virgin is the third largest recipient of a £1.5 billion cut in track operating fees that, Chakrabortty observes, is “an indirect subsidy given by the public to the train operators.”
Virgin’s charity heroics don’t seem particularly interested in helping African nations take control of their tariffs
The billionaire’s supporters often point to his vast charity wing, Virgin Unite, as evidence that Branson does actually care about helping people after all. The non-profit foundation to which Sir Richard sends a significant parcel of his personal fortune every year provides start-up funding to a wide range of entrepreneurs across the African continent, forming companies that often create infrastructure on a for-profit basis. This may well be helpful for Virgin: since the Great Recession in 2008, Branson has celebrated how the global recovery has led to particular hotspots of profit for Virgin Group’s interests in Africa. Virgin Unite also supports several charity initiatives that cover healthcare, where once again their heroics don’t seem particularly interested in helping nations pried open by Wall Street and the IMF to take enough control of their tariffs that they can build their own state healthcare systems.
This model of strutting philanthropy alongside a haughty disdain for taxpayer sovereignty also emerges in Branson’s attitude to climate change. The self-described “tie-loathing adventurer” sponsors environmental conservation charities, recognizes the impact of human activity on climate change, and last year tweeted that “it’s time for bold leadership and conservation in the #Arctic”.
So of course it wasn’t long before the comedian Frankie Boyle pointed out the irony to him on Twitter: “you own an airline, you mad cunt”, he wrote, to public guffaws. Aviation produces about 2% of the world’s man made CO2 emissions, and climate change already has a disproportionately harsh impact on developing countries in the southern hemisphere. Sir Richard waited a day before making a limp retort that “we all use airlines. Even comedians. Shouldn’t stop any of us trying to address climate change.”
The billionaire has a clear track record of using a liberal persona to protect an otherwise conservative list of interests
This is the core of the creed that our silly entrepreneur cult reads out to us: make every problem about the individual and never the system. Blame the consumer to spare the vendor. And above all, respect the entrepreneur, who knows what’s best for you. Trust him over the conniving politician, even if his leaking of CCTV footage to the public is probably outside the law. And don’t question his business interests as long as his rhetoric is vaguely liberatory. “I’m lucky enough to work on an island,” Sir Richard said to an audience in Chicago this week, “and one day you can all do that too.” Presumably he wasn’t speaking to the railway workers he tried to fire to save money after claiming he’d overbid on a train franchise – they don’t own businesses, they only work for one, so not for them an island paradise to reward the spirit of enterprise.
Corbyn’s role in #traingate was clearly a poorly planned media stunt, and thanks partly to his PR ineptitude and partly to the press’s hostility towards him, it backfired the moment Richard Branson wanted it to. What matters, what should matter at least, is that Branson wanted it to. Given the billionaire’s clear track record of using a liberal persona to protect an otherwise conservative list of interests, it is not hard to see why this diversion was created.
Image: William Murphy
