Virgin Trains To Stop The Daily Mail On Their Passenger Service

[emmie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42621425

[donny48]

Pardon the interruption,
Good morning Minty, XXOOXX

[emmie]

MM indeed by it as the station, but Branson is strangely quiet just now about this, he lets his minions do the talking -

[Togo]

Haha I can see the next stunt now Minty......... The Mail employs glamorous "models" to parade up and down the railway stations handing out copies of the Mail to Vegan Drain passengers with photographers and quotes from travellers..........all in support of the Mail. :))

[murraymints]

morning Donny XX..OO..XX..

[murraymints]

he'll be roughing it in Necker !

[jno]

as 237SJ has pointed out, airlines have already stopped dishing out the Mail and nobody's protested. That's because it was the Mail's own idea - they stopped selling the papers cheaply (or giving them away) to airlines. Now all of a sudden the loss of a handful of sales has got Dacre's snowflakes all upset - and of course they've decided it's all about Brexit .

[emmie]

the Mail people didn't decide anything, the Mail should be sold at whatever venue, banning it on the so called grounds of they sell only 1 copy per train means a degree
of censorship, that is how the article reads.
Branson doesn't like the Mail, that much is patently obvious.

[jno]

minty, I've just googled him. As far as I can see, the last time he said anything about Virgin Rail was in 2012.

Quite right too. Sensible owners delegate to staff and let them get on with it. I can't see that he has anything to do with day-to-day running of the trains at all, let alone what newspapers or bags of crisps they sell. Why do you imagine his staff are minions? Have you ever been a boss's minion?

[emmie]

I have, and believe me they delegate all sorts of crap.

[Togo]

//Quite right too. Sensible owners delegate to staff and let them get on with it. I can't see that he has anything to do with day-to-day running //

But if No10s resident cat catches a mouse Mrs May is accused of animal cruelty.

[Gromit]

Feels like a non story.

You can buy your mail on the way to the station, or even at the station if it has a WHSmiths.
Most stations have a free Metro newspaper, so I am not sure why anyone would need to buy any newspaper on the train anyway.

[emmie]

it might be a non story, but its piqued the interest on here?

[zebo]

Were I to travel on Virgin trains I think that I would feel obliged to accumulate as many copies of the Mail, and any other censored newspapers, as leave them scattered all over the train. Are we going to burn books that don't suit our agenda? Some philosopher once said something along the lines of I don't agree with what you're saying but I'll defend your right to say it.
Are the trains still littered with the ghastly Metro freesheet?

[emmie]

zebo
last time i was out and about, yes they were

[emmie]

Voltaire said it apparently..

[sp1814]

Why are we using the word ‘ban’, rather than the more appropriate ‘stop selling’?

Virgin Trains are not banning people from reading the Mail.

Mail readers can buy their paper at WH Smith or whatever shop they choose on station concourses.

They can also log into the Mail online site, using Virgin Trains’ WiFi.

This is a storm in a teacup.

If Virgin Trains want to stock papers that reflect its corporate values, then what’s the problem?

[Jackdaw33]

I must agree with the above. It is something of nothing. Remember when newsagents in Liverpool stopped selling The Sun in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster?

[ichkeria]

When I was in the Isles of Scilly many years ago just about the only paper sold in any shop was the Daily Telegraph. I wondered if it was done to spite Harold Wilson who at the time was the islands’ most famous tourist

[Khandro]

Someone must have said this, but as it's free online why not, on a Virgin train, read the Mail on a laptop or smart phone? That is, assuming you want to, I don't, and the only way I read it is when AOG posts bits of it on here.

[Togo]

//Virgin announced in an internal note that it had ceased stocking the paper in November because of matters raised by staff.
The note said workers expressed "considerable concern" about the Mail's editorial position on issues such as immigration, LGBT rights and unemployment.//

That's alright then?
Followed by a lie.
//But the newspaper said the train firm told it at the time the reason Virgin would no longer be stocking the Mail was because it was aiming to "save space".//
//The Mail claimed Virgin was acting for political reasons after the paper criticised a decision to use taxpayer funds to "bail out" Virgin's East Coast mainline franchise.
A spokesman for the Daily Mail said: "It is disgraceful that, at a time of massive customer dissatisfaction over ever-increasing rail fares, and after the taxpayer was forced to bail out Virgin's East Coast mainline franchise, a decision strongly criticised by the Mail, that Virgin Trains should now announce that for political reasons it is censoring the choice of newspapers it offers to passengers.
"It is equally rich that Virgin chose to launch this attack on free speech in the Aslef trade union journal.//
It all becomes clear.