There was fury this weekend as Bournemouth Council announced it was scrapping the beloved four-day Bournemouth Air Festival – a 16-year fixture that pulls in 600,000 fans and showcases the Red Arrows. The ‘cash-strapped’ council bleated it couldn’t stomach the £250,000 price tag. Carbon emissions from the planes and extra traffic were also trotted out as handy excuses to ground the spectacle…
Yet the LibDem leader of Bournemouth Council, Millie Earl, didn’t bat an eye about splashing council cash jetting off to MIPIM – a swanky, four-day real estate conference in sunny Cannes – held every March at the Palais des Festivals. An FOI request reveals her return flight from Gatwick to Nice cost the taxpayer a tidy £578. Earle even took to the stage to lecture on her “environmental campaigning” at the notoriously raucous gathering…
“Clearly this council leader operates on a do as I say, not do as I do policy, given she’s more than happy to jet off to the French Riviera for a boozy real estate bash but not happy to host an airshow that pumps tens of millions of pounds into the local economy.”
Hypocrisy flying high here…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”