Saturday, February 19, 2022
The cost of Johnson's vanity
All politicians have a love-hate relationship with the camera, but they are at their most comfortable when photographed sending an important message. It's just that it doesnt normally cost tens of thousands of pounds of public money to get their poimt across.
The Independent reports that a Royal Air Force aircraft P-8A Poseidon was flown a distance of more than 330 miles from its base in Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland for a photoshoot with Boris Johnson, before flying back. They say that pictures of the prime minister with RAF aircraft made some of the front pages about the Ukraine crisis on Friday, following his visit to the Waddington base in Lincolnshire on Thursday:
The plane, a maritime patrol aircraft designed for anti-submarine warfare, departed from its base shortly before 9am on Wednesday, the Press Association reported.
It then flew back on Thursday, leaving at about 6.20pm, after the prime minister completed his visit to the base. It had never previously visited the Waddington base.
Mr Johnson was also pictured with his thumbs up sitting in a RAF Typhoon fast jet, which was flown from its home base of RAF Coningsby, which is 15 miles away from RAF Waddington.
Both the Typhoon Mr Johnson was pictured sitting in, and the P-8A Poseidon were flown back to their respective bases after his visit.
...
Meanwhile, the latest government spending documents show that Mr Johnson’s flights on the RAF Voyager four-day trip to the US in September cost just over £365,000.
A group of 45 officials accompanied the PM on his trip on the plane – dubbed “the Brexit jet” after a £900,000 red, white and blue paint job in 2020 – so he could appear at the UN General Assembly and meet president Joe Biden.
It has also emerged that the government spent £125,000 on climate minister Alok Sharma’s flight to China ahead of the Cop26 conference, as part of his push to get Beijing to sign up to carbon-cutting measures.
A specially-chartered plane for the Cop26 president and his staff cost £125,000, while another £18,000 was spent on accommodation, meals and visas during the September trip, The Sun first reported.
The latest government spending documents show Mr Sharma and his team also used specially-charted flights to go to Jamaica, Antigua & Barbuda and Barbados for pre-Cop26 talks in July – at the cost of £24,000.
Mr Sharma’s flights raised eyebrows last year when it emerged on the eve of the big climate summit in Glasgow that he had taken flights to more than 30 countries – with opposition politicians accusing him of being “hypocritical” about carbon reduction.
Nice to see our taxes being put to good use.
The Independent reports that a Royal Air Force aircraft P-8A Poseidon was flown a distance of more than 330 miles from its base in Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland for a photoshoot with Boris Johnson, before flying back. They say that pictures of the prime minister with RAF aircraft made some of the front pages about the Ukraine crisis on Friday, following his visit to the Waddington base in Lincolnshire on Thursday:
The plane, a maritime patrol aircraft designed for anti-submarine warfare, departed from its base shortly before 9am on Wednesday, the Press Association reported.
It then flew back on Thursday, leaving at about 6.20pm, after the prime minister completed his visit to the base. It had never previously visited the Waddington base.
Mr Johnson was also pictured with his thumbs up sitting in a RAF Typhoon fast jet, which was flown from its home base of RAF Coningsby, which is 15 miles away from RAF Waddington.
Both the Typhoon Mr Johnson was pictured sitting in, and the P-8A Poseidon were flown back to their respective bases after his visit.
...
Meanwhile, the latest government spending documents show that Mr Johnson’s flights on the RAF Voyager four-day trip to the US in September cost just over £365,000.
A group of 45 officials accompanied the PM on his trip on the plane – dubbed “the Brexit jet” after a £900,000 red, white and blue paint job in 2020 – so he could appear at the UN General Assembly and meet president Joe Biden.
It has also emerged that the government spent £125,000 on climate minister Alok Sharma’s flight to China ahead of the Cop26 conference, as part of his push to get Beijing to sign up to carbon-cutting measures.
A specially-chartered plane for the Cop26 president and his staff cost £125,000, while another £18,000 was spent on accommodation, meals and visas during the September trip, The Sun first reported.
The latest government spending documents show Mr Sharma and his team also used specially-charted flights to go to Jamaica, Antigua & Barbuda and Barbados for pre-Cop26 talks in July – at the cost of £24,000.
Mr Sharma’s flights raised eyebrows last year when it emerged on the eve of the big climate summit in Glasgow that he had taken flights to more than 30 countries – with opposition politicians accusing him of being “hypocritical” about carbon reduction.
Nice to see our taxes being put to good use.
