Andy Burnham has arrived at No10 North – or No10 Midlands as it should be called – by private jet. Starmer’s favourite massive government jet to be precise…
GGBNI, an Airbus A321, flew Burnham up to Glasgow to launch the Commonwealth Games and has today landed in Manchester:
Burnham is “working from” No10 North today – not a great start if you’re only getting to the airport at 10 a.m. He will say hello to everyone, say hello to the media, and that’s the day’s work done…
The jet is due to leave Manchester for London later this morning, indicating that Burnham is likely to get the train back down south for PR purposes.
One official quipped: “He seems to have misunderstood that the plane is not called GBNI because it just flies around GBNI.” Ministers taking domestic flights in Britain often take one two smaller Dassault 900LXs operated by the RAF’s 32 Squadron. Not King Andy…
According to publicly available estimates Andy’s flights could burn through upwards of £30,000 in taxpayer cash. Train not good enough?
For the three flights there the A321 will produce roughly 27 to 30 tonnes of CO2, around 9 to 10 tonnes each. The average Brit’s total carbon footprint is roughly 7 tonnes of CO2 per year. Burnham’s decision to take the jet has produced about four years’ worth of the average person’s entire annual carbon footprint in the space of two days…
UPDATE: A government spokesman said:
“Government aircraft are used in line with the Ministerial Code and long-standing rules governing official travel.
The Government will always seek to ensure ministers can carry out their duties effectively while delivering value for money for taxpayers. As with previous administrations, appropriate transport is used where necessary to meet operational, security and scheduling requirements.”
Doubling down on that 38-minute flight…
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.”