Jeremy Corbyn was insistently questioned by reporters yesterday before conceding that he passed empty seats as he was looking to sit next to his wife

Jeremy Corbyn threatened to strip Sir Richard Branson’s company of its rail franchise yesterday after it undermined the Labour leader’s claim that he had to sit on the floor on one of its services.

Mr Corbyn’s team also launched an attack on the entrepreneur after the row, describing him as a “tax exile” who would be “laughing all the way to the bank” at the public’s expense. They suggested that Sir Richard had started the row because of Mr Corbyn’s plans to renationalise the railways.

The incident sparked Twitter jokes at the Labour leader’s expense <DIV XMLNS="HTTP://WWW.W3.ORG/1999/XHTML"/>

It came after Mr Corbyn effectively admitted there were empty seats on a Virgin Trains service he claimed had been so “ram-packed” that he had to join travellers on the floor.

The Labour leader said he had walked past empty