Take The Strain

The carry on over Jeremy Corbyn's train journey now comes down to whom one believes, and why.

Why would Richard Branson want to discredit a man who wanted to renationalise the railways? Are Corbyn's supporters supposed to treat Branson's website as a reliable source? How sweet.

I had a perfectly good, if brief, journey both ways on Virgin Trains last night. But since when was the last train to Durham from Newcastle at 10:46?

And that was not the half of it. I was only able to go at all because a friend of mine could arrange to get me back from Durham to Lanchester.

The last bus used to be at 11:10. But no more. Nine o'clock, as if we all had to be up for school in the morning.

In many ways, I would like to re-join the Labour Party. In many ways, I am a more active member of it than a good many card-carriers, and far more so than most of its MPs.

But then I look at the atrocious Owen Smith-like machine in these parts.

£12,000 is more than many a full-time job in County Durham. It is also the Council Chairman's clothing allowance.

Yet, for those of us who are medically unable to drive, cuts to the bus service have turned Lanchester, which was previously very much on the beaten track and which is only eight miles from Durham city centre, into the middle of nowhere in the evenings, on Sundays and on Bank Holidays.