So now Richard Branson has joined in the efforts to vilify Jeremy Corbyn. What is is that the Tories, the Murdoch press, the panicked wing of the Labour Party and now Branson, a man whose personal wealth rose by £86 million last year to a staggering £3.6 billion, really don't like about Jeremy Corbyn? I'll tell you: it's his winning streak.
Let's face it, Jeremy is a political sensation. Far from being an election loser, he's already pulled off two astonishing election victories: the first being elected onto the ballot to be in the Labour leadership contest of last summer and the second getting elected - with that overwhelming mandate - as Leader of the Labour Party.
Don't for a minute think the establishment don't get that. Don't for a minute think that those with vested interests in our corporations, cartels and corridors of power believe Jeremy can't win a general election, form a Labour government and become our next Prime Minister. It's why they spend so much time trying to destroy him. And the Virgin Seatgate saga is the evidence that Jeremy and his popular policy ideas are really getting to the boss class and that they take him very seriously indeed.
Richard Branson didn't launch his twitter attack on Jeremy because he had another idle moment on his Necker Island or because he could need the publicity. He did it because his £5.5 billion Virgin Group, the whole privatised corporate world he represents, is under huge threat from the set of public-centred ideas that Jeremy Corbyn stands for. Branson sees what all the big capitalistas see:the end of their huge, fat-cat, neo-liberal, profit days could be nigh.
Virgin Rail has made huge profits - another £53.7m last year alone for it's tax exile owner - whilst earning itself an unbroken record at the top of the league tables as the rail operator with the highest rates of complaints from dissatisfied customers. Lack of available seats, regular overcrowding, confusing ticket tariffs, a reservation system not fit for purpose, regular overcrowding on all it's routes -especially on the first off-peak trains out of Kings Cross and Euston and, that's before we even get to the delays, staff shortages and risks with passenger-safety.
Both Virgin's West Coast and East Coast franchises will be returned to public control under a Jeremy Corbyn's Labour government. Far from being a vote loser, Jeremy Corbyn's plan to nationalise our railways system and invest in a railway fit for the 21st century is supported by around 70pc of the public and even some Tory MPs.
Today Jeremy has announced under his Labour Government, private marketeers will be driven out of the Health Service. Again a widely popular and winning policy with the public. And guess who will be one of the first people he has to chase out? I'll tell you: Richard Branson.
Not content with the vast pots of gold he's made from the deregulation of the travel and telecom industries, Branson has been quietly taking over whole chunks of our National Health Service. Since the Tories gave him the green light in 2012, Branson's Virgin Care has amassed nearly 350 contracts, runs over 350 GP surgeries and plans to expand its reach further into the healthcare market which industry analysts Laing Buisson say will be worth up to £20 billion by 2020.
No wonder he's trying to spin so negatively against Jeremy. But it's a battle Branson too will lose. For all the shit that is thrown at Jeremy, it falls and drops as manure to nurture a grassroots movement that grows bigger daily in support of the policies he represents. As even the Times columnist Matthew Parris has noted, Jeremy has shifted the whole of the British political terrain to the left.
Jeremy pulled off two stunning electoral victories last summer. The PLP may have forced him into a new and unnecessary leadership battle this summer but he's seized the opportunity to get out and about Britain and put flesh on the bones of the prosperity policies that will rebuild and rebalance Britain. We now have concrete proposals for a National Investment Bank that will invest £500 million in environment-friendly infrastructure programmes to rebuild and rebalance our economy; a mass council house building programme that means everyone should have a place they can call their own; market-free National Education and National Health Services free at the point of use and a publicly-owned rail service with a strategy to grow it in accordance with passengers needs rather than the profits of the likes of Branson.
Branson didn't have a go at Jeremy because of a seat. It's not why Murdoch et al have a go either. They don't care about personality and neither should we: this really is all "about the economy, stupid!"
Jeremy represent the public's patriotic interest in running the economy of our country in all our people's interests. Branson and his ilk represent keeping us on their basement floor. And we the people have had enough and are backing Jeremy. We've made the Labour Party grow, we'll make Jeremy win this year's leadership election again and we the people are building the movement that will put Jeremy Corbyn's People's Labour Party back in Downing Street. We've found our winning streak.