Blair flies commercial?

[1st love ron]

What's up with the crazy Brits allowing their man to fly commercial? Is their no equivalent to our Air Force One? Or, was he making some kind of "statement" this time by flying commercial?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061227/wl_nm/plane_blair_dc

 

[ElectricSuperstar]

The QUEEN, our TRUE head of state.. has the Queen's Flight - an entire RAF unit devoted to her transport.

Apparently not anymore (since 1995).

"The principal purpose of 32 [The Royal] Squadron [is] to provide communications and logistical support to military operations; the Squadron's capacity should be based on military needs only; and any royal or other non-military use of.. spare capacity is secondary to its military purpose."

Source: National Audit Office - "Royal Travel by Air and Rail"

 

[Riverrick]

But is he ever REALLY on vacation? Doesn't he have to attend to some business while he is gone?

It seems to me that it would be much more costly for the country to deal with the loss of a Prime Minister than to fly him around on a military jet.

 

[looseliam]

I've heard of him flying BA business class whilst on official business. If I find the article I'll post it here.

 

[provenlogic]

yea when i heard what happened, my first thought wasn't, gee that's scary, it was, "wait a minute, the prime minister of great britain flies commercial?!?!"

 

[Apollo]

^

"the british are a civilized people, they dont chew out their own people, they get others to do it for them"

quote from Good Shepherd

 

[josher]

Because it comes to that simple of issues again doenst it...



I guess we're just a more civilised load over here in that we dont resort to violence to vent our anger.

So civilised that Maggie Thatcher almost got blown up by the IRA at a party conference. If you think there aren't assassination plots against almost all world leaders, you're very naive. I love Great Britain, but it's (literally) "penny wise and pound foolish" not to provide the prime minister with secure transportation. I've listened to all the blather about him/her being "just another person" and "no one pays for our transport" for years. It's time to enter the 21st century.

 

[TriBi]

errm....

well, ....could it be....
that GWB is more "at risk" (or paranoid) because of his pronouncements/presidency than the PM of the UK or Australia?