Corbyn lied, Virgin Trains lied, Harambe died

Video So, Jeremy Corbyn recorded a message in which he was sitting on the floor of a train traveling between London and Newcastle, claiming it was "ram-packed" (as exampled by his floor sitting) and that was why all of the trains needed to be renationalised.

While on the floor in a video for The Guardian's website, Jez said: "This is a problem that many passengers face every day on the trains – commuters and long-distance travellers. Today this train is completely ram-packed. The staff on the train are absolutely brilliant, working really hard to help everybody. The reality is there's not enough trains, we need more of them."

Today, however, CCTV footage released by Virgin Trains – alongside a fairly snippy "clarification" on the matter – suggests that Jez may have been mistaken in thinking he needed to sit on the floor.

Virgin stated: "CCTV footage taken from the train on August 11 shows Mr Corbyn and his team walked past empty, unreserved seats in coach H before walking through the rest of the train to the far end, where his team sat on the floor and started filming."

Not only that, but more CCTV footage showed that after filming, Corbyn returned to Coach H and sat himself down there.

In the biggest scandal in Jeremy Corbyn's scandalous leadership of the Labour Party since last week's scandal (which we've forgotten now), the plot got even more scandalously thick when, as Barrister Matthew Scott spotted, it seems that the release of the CCTV footage by Virgin Trains appeared to be in direct contravention of its own privacy policy.

Here is an extract from Virgin's June 2016 privacy policy (it includes information from CCTV on trains). pic.twitter.com/RyLcyDxqPc

— Matthew Scott (@Barristerblog) August 23, 2016

This may yet get Virgin Trains in a bit of trouble, and not just from brick-chucking Corbynistas. The ICO's CCTV Code of Practice [PDF] notes that "disclosure of information from surveillance systems must be controlled and consistent with the purpose(s) for which the system was established."

For example, it can be appropriate to disclose surveillance information to a law enforcement agency when the purpose of the system is to prevent and detect crime, but it would not be appropriate to place them on the internet in most situations. It may also not be appropriate to disclose information about identifiable individuals to the media.

Placing such information on the internet incorrectly, or without full consideration of what is being done, may cause the disclosure of individuals' personal data and sensitive personal data. In severe cases, this may lead to the ICO taking enforcement action. In 2011 the ICO took action in a case related to streamed CCTV footage that ended up on the YouTube website. Information can be released to the media for identification purposes; this should not generally be done by anyone other than a law enforcement agency.

The plot thickens. #traingate pic.twitter.com/FXH0z4v7mU

— David Paxton (@DavidDPaxton) August 23, 2016

The filmmaker accompanying Corbyn has said that the seemingly empty seats in the carriage were either reserved or had bags or coats on them. Neither the Labour Party nor Virgin Trains immediately responded to our enquiries. ®