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Politics
Liam O'Dell
May 23, 2023
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It’s not long in UK politics before another scandalous headline about a Tory minister using a jet sparks outrage online.
Back under the turbulent premiership of Boris Johnson, the ex-prime minister used one to fly home from a family holiday, bought a “Brexit jet” with taxpayers’ money, left the Cop26 climate summit on a private jet, and got RAF aircraft to fly 330 miles just for a photoshoot.
His successor, Liz Truss, also came under fire when she was foreign secretary, after reports surfaced of her flying over to Australia on a private jet at a cost of £500,000 to the British taxpayer.
Now, the current foreign secretary James Cleverly has faced similar criticism, as The Guardian reported on Monday that the Braintree MP has used a £10,000-an-hour private jet for his tour of the Caribbean and Latin America.
To translate that into a bigger sum for Mr Cleverly’s 10-day trip, Air Hamburg said hiring out the Embraer Lineage 1000E – which comes with countless seats, a queen-size bed, private shower and bedroom, and widescreen TVs – for that length of time would generate a bill of around €400,000 (or £348,000).
Ouch.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary and Mr Cleverly’s Labour counterpart, tweeted out a ink to a virtual tour on Air Hamburg’s website and added: “It’s an essential part of the foreign secretary’s job to fly overseas for diplomatic engagement but I defy anyone to take this 360 tour of the jet James Cleverly is using for his current trip abroad and tell me this level of extravagance is ‘essential’.”
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Naturally, such an eye-watering price for the taxpayer has left other Twitter users incredulous too – especially considering it’s a jet popularised by the characters of the hit HBO series Succession:
\u201cWhile some nurses have to access food banks, Tory Foreign Sec James Cleverly, who defended Zahawi saying MP's tax should be private \ud83e\udd14, has been using a jet identical to that in TV series Succession at \u00a310,000 an hour..\n\n"Let them eat cake" anyone? \n\n https://t.co/ACqMG0xC6y\u201d— Carol Vorderman (@Carol Vorderman) 1684783469
\u201c37% of all families with three or more kids went hungry last month. And @JamesCleverly is travelling on a \u00a310,000 an hour jet. \n\nWhat contempt he shows for everyday people. https://t.co/KxPBRs6YFI\u201d— Jo Maugham (@Jo Maugham) 1684782680
\u201cYou have to admit that a man called Cleverly who is MP for Braintree is seriously dim, deluded and despicable! https://t.co/CbvraYT2bR\u201d— Steve Bray on Mastodon @SNB19692@Mastodon.Social (@Steve Bray on Mastodon @SNB19692@Mastodon.Social) 1684796742
\u201cAusterity? What austerity?\n\nNothing's too good for this worker when taxpayers will cover the bill https://t.co/2fRMBfrf2E\u201d— Kevin Maguire (@Kevin Maguire) 1684771628
\u201cThey are now taking the absolute fecking p*ss:\n\nTory James Cleverly hires \u00a340m private jet to globetrot around for his diplomatic duties costing taxpayers \u00a312,000 per hour while people have to go to foodbanks for their next meal.\nhttps://t.co/Re6sdcESIr\u201d— JmRoyle #YNWA #BLM #GTTO #LFC (@JmRoyle #YNWA #BLM #GTTO #LFC) 1684779988
When approached for comment, a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson told The Guardian: “The foreign secretary’s job requires him to travel abroad to pursue UK interests. This was the most time-effective way to do this in this instance.
“Value for money is taken into account in all travel decisions and costs are regularly published for transparency.”
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