Apparently our beloved PM is to get his own downgraded version of the U.S. President’s Air Force One.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the government is planning to spend £10million refitting an RAF plane, which would be used by the Prime Minister, senior ministers and even members of the royal family.
The PM is the only leader of a G20 nation who does not currently have an aircraft, so he is obviously feeling a bit left out at summits at the moment. Ministers claim the plane would actually save up to £775,000 a year by replacing the charter flights used for long-distance trips abroad.
A government source told the Telegraph:
The aircraft will not be luxurious. This is about saving taxpayers money. There will be upfront costs but by using a refitted RAF Voyager instead of chartering private aircraft for each long-distance trip, we will save taxpayers money.
Air Force One cost around £200million, so CameronAir (as it probably won’t be called) sounds like it will be significantly less plush than the president’s luxury jet. However, D-Cam is not the first PM to want his own airliner, Tony Blair had planned to buy two private jets at a cost of about £100m, but Blair Force One was scrapped by Gordon Brown. Takes a braver man than me to defy warmongering old Tony.
