
Labour might not be in power but their transport secretary has already publicly owned Virgin Trains.
On Friday, Virgin Trains made an ill-advised attempt at banter on their Twitter account when they quoted Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback” with a picture of one of its trains.
That tweet caught the attention of Andy McDonald, Labour’s shadow secretary for transport, who couldn’t resist hitting back with an extraordinary reply…
I'm bringing public ownership back https://t.co/WyXnNUQn2K— Andy McDonald MP 💙 (@Andy McDonald MP 💙) 1571408555
Where did McDonald get the inspiration for his savage response?
There’s a good chance he was inspired by writer Laurie Charles, as it looks like the MP favourited her reply to Virgin Trains just before he sent the tweet.
@VirginTrains @TySamuels3 lmaoooooo HELL yeah https://t.co/6PQzjDWsgp— Laurie Charles (@Laurie Charles) 1571408810
And it wasn’t just McDonald who was dragging the train company for the joke.
@VirginTrains @TySamuels3 I'm ready for my close-up! https://t.co/wcgyti7ev8— ScotRail (@ScotRail) 1571387319
@VirginTrains @TySamuels3 You mean a nationalised railway? 😍😍— J Francis (@J Francis) 1571386425
I'm replacing sexy at the weekends https://t.co/n71b3HfTmX https://t.co/vg5M725kkb— @hughkeogh (@@hughkeogh) 1571410512
Big words for someone called virgin. https://t.co/YSZjRSvBzs— Kiyun Anon (@Kiyun Anon) 1571410864
There’s no word yet from Virgin on whether they’re going to take McDonald’s response without a fight.
A YouGov poll from earlier this year showed that 56 per cent of British adults support the railways being renationalised.