Tories spent £800,000 portray union flag on ministerial airplane

Boris Johnson splashed out virtually £800,000 of taxpayers’ cash to color a union flag on a ministerial airplane.

The former Prime Minister triggered fury in 2020 when it emerged the Government spent £900,000 respraying an RAF Voyager so he might fly world wide in a pink, white and blue airplane.

The Airbus A330, which is used often as a refuelling tanker, was initially army gray. Now, the Mirror reports, a freedom of data request from the Taxpayers Alliance found the ex-PM spent one other £800,000 sprucing up a smaller Airbus A321 which the Government leases from constitution agency Titan Airways.

It means a complete of £1.7million has been spent repainting planes. The second plane was modified so it too bore the Union Flag throughout its fuselage and tail fin in what the Cabinet Office calls “the Global UK branding”.

Titan later swapped the airplane for an similar mannequin. This was provided with the identical livery.

Current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak often makes use of the pink, white and blue airplane, and is because of fly aboard it to the NATO summit in Lithuania. The plane is designed for smaller journeys and, in contrast to the Voyager, it has WiFi protection, that means occupants can talk whereas airborne.

Speaking to the Sunday People, Labour frontbencher Emily Thornberry mentioned: “We’ve seen a succession of Tory Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries addicted to the private jet lifestyle, and it is high time they were honest with the British people about how much that is all costing, rather than having the figures forced out of them like this.

“There was never any public debate about the costs and benefits of leasing a second government plane, and the higher those costs grow, the more we need to know what benefit the taxpayer is getting in return.”

TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign manager Conor Holohan said: “Taxpayers will be livid at the sky high cost of this paint job. Ministers should rein in their love of luxury.”

Zap Air Holdings, the company that owns Titan, announced in its annual report that it had launched an affiliate company, Titan Airways Malta, to stop it losing money because of Brexit. They wrote that the agency would “mitigate against the potential loss of intra-European Union revenues.”

The Cabinet Office initially tried to maintain secret the price of portray the Titan Airways jet. But was pressured to disclose the worth following a criticism to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Replying to the liberty of data request, it mentioned: “The total cost of painting the aircraft in question with the Union Jack was £783,940. The branding of this aircraft with the Union Flag was an intentional Government policy to project the role of the United Kingdom on the international stage.”