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Jeremy Corbyn v Richard Branson – the Battle of the Beards. And as someone who uses the East Coast line every week, I’m with the passengers.

Virgin East Coast Trains, which Corbyn highlighted in his video, is 90 per cent owned by Stagecoach, run by SNP donor Brian Souter.

Virgin Trains owns only 10 per cent. And Stagecoach owns half of that too. But this dispute is 100 per cent about Branson. It’s all about protecting his “brand” at any cost.

When I was Labour ’s shadow transport minister before Major privatised the railways, Branson told me he wanted to own both the East Coast and the West Coast services.

His dream was to own a rail “loop” around the country. I was dead against it.

(Image: Getty)

As Transport Secretary I faced a mountain of problems to sort out the privatisation mess. My priority was improving the rail lines.

Sadly my hands were tied on taking the franchises back into public ownership.

They had years to run and would have cost billions in compensation to people like Branson to take them back.

Blair and Brown felt there were more pressing priorities – getting people back to work and investing in our creaking NHS and schools after years of Tory misrule.

But in 2009, Labour had to take the East Coast route back into public hands.

The previous private franchise owners National Express and GNER couldn’t make it profitable.

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So we created East Coast Trains. This meant we could compare a London-to-Scotland train service in public hands with Branson’s.

Guess which was better?

From 2009 until 2014, a state-run East Coast Trains delivered £1billion back to the taxpayer. Which was all reinvested in making the service better.

Over the same period, Virgin West Coast could only manage a third of that profit – and most of that sum went to its shareholders.

In fact, they lost the franchise to First Trains, only to get it back after a legal challenge.

East Coast Trains provided a better service, a better return, used less subsidy and made the taxpayer money.

But the Tories forced the sell-off of the East Coast Route to Virgin and Stagecoach just before the last General Election for £3billion. Branson finally got his loop.

But they paid twice as much as the previous private owners paid – and they couldn’t make it work. How will Virgin do it?

Well, in the past the state subsidised his profits. A study by academics at the University of Manchester found the total subsidy we gave Virgin West Coast between 1997 and 2012 was £2.79billion.

Government then spent £9bn upgrading the West Coast Track and heavily subsidised his new Pendolino trains.

And Network Rail, which controls the lines, reduced the yearly track access charges train companies have to pay from £3bn to £1.5bn. Another state subsidy.

So between 1997 and 2012, Virgin West Coast Trains were able to make £518m profit – 96 per cent of which was given straight to shareholders.

But Branson’s finding Virgin East Coast a bit more of a problem as the Tories are reducing the subsidies – and it’s the staff and passengers who’ll pay the price.

It pulled many of its cheapest advanced fares from popular routes, doubling some fares – and passengers aren’t even guaranteed a seat.

According to the train union the RMT, dozens of staff face the sack as Virgin East Coast tries to find cuts. Free wifi on all trains promised in Branson’s bid has failed to appear.

And on my Virgin East Coast Train, once proudly known as the Hull Executive, the service has rapidly deteriorated. Forget wifi, the train I get doesn’t even have plug sockets.

And five months before we become the UK City of Culture attracting tourists from around the world, the engine is branded East Midlands Trains.

I wrote to Branson on three occasions but received no reply. But he’s more than happy to potentially breach data protection laws (the ICO is “making inquiries”) and publish CCTV footage of a man who wants to take his shoddy train service back into public hands.

They may be Virgin Trains. But the passengers are getting screwed day after day.