Foreign Secretary Liz Truss splashed “at least £500,000” of taxpayers money on a private plane to Australia, it has been claimed.
Campaigners have accused Ms Truss of exuding “shocking privilege” by riding an “outrageous source of carbon emissions”.
Ms Truss set off for Australia on January 18 at noon from London’s Stansted Airport. Her private journey had two pit stops, according to flight data, with one 90-minute stop at Dubai and another at Kuala Lumpur. She touched down in Sydney shortly after midnight on Thursday January 20 - with her journey being catalogued by a taxpayer-funded PR photographer.
If she had travelled via business class on a Qantas Airways flight, the Foreign Secretary could have arrived in Australia five hours earlier. And she would not have spent as many carbon emissions because the flight from London would have taken her straight from London Heathrow to Adelaide, Australia.
An aviation source told the Independent the cost of operating Ms Truss’s trip would have been “at least £500,000”, while the most expensive business-class tickets which also offers lie-flat beds would have been cost just over £7,700.
A Foreign Office source told the Mirror Ms Truss needed to fly privately so she can work securely and have the flexibility to set off to another destination in the event of crisis in other regions escalating, such as Eastern Europe.
Ms Truss used the private Airbus A321 to, from and around Australia. It has luxury interiors including spacious soft cream-coloured seats that fold into lie-flat beds.
The plane could seat around 200 people without luxury configuration, and even with luxury seats fits scores of passengers. The Foreign Office has not said how many people were in Ms Truss’ delegation.
Emblazoned with the Union flag and the words United Kingdom, it is thought to be a privately-owned plane that is regularly leased to the government for official journeys.
The same aircraft rushed Boris Johnson back from the COP26 summit in Glasgow to London in November, in what Labour branded “staggering hypocrisy”. The PM could have caught a train but taking the flight allowed him to make a dinner with Daily Telegraph journalists at the men-only Garrick Club.
Another Tory greedy grasper who likes spending the taxpayers’ money wantonly …
Its always the lefties getting outraged about everything the conservatives do, the MSM is full of it. The thing is, last time they were running the country, they bankrupted the country and had illegal wars. In recent events, Boris had some cake and Liz Truss took the government jet to do government work in.
I’m not a socialist if thats what you mean. The headline is “Liz Truss takes private plane to Australia 'Blowing £500k of Taxpayer Cash”.
What it should say is “Government Minster takes Government Jet to Australia to do Government work at a total cost to the Tax Payer of £500k”. Its not a private plane, it’s actually public transport when you think about it.
The plane is there for a reason, to publicise global Britain as part of Brexit and to make a bold statement when travelling to other countries. The article is very misleading to make out that Liz took a private jet to Australia at a cost of 500K to the tax payer - this is a public owned asset that the public are funding to promote the UK around the world after Brexit. Liz Truss so far has completed trade deals worth (hundreds) of billions a year in revenues - if this is how she gets these deals done, we should give her the keys and let her get on with it.
The Mirror then goes on to quote carbon footprints etc but oh how silent the left wing hacks were during COP26 when there was 118 off these things fling back and forth to Glasgow, complete with motorcades, helicopters and limousines.
Leftie is socialism - there are different levels which all base themselves around the same principles.
Read my earlier post - it explains my point very clearly and how the left wing media (The Mirror) have distorted the truth. I’m not the one here taking pot shots at the government - thats you and your mate Omah, I’m simply clarifying the reality of what actually happened and pointing out the hypocrisy that comes from the left as they judge others according to principles and moral standards they never measure up to themselves.
I’m not outraged, I think the Mirror is hilarious, I’m just surprised they don’t give free felt tipped pens to readers of it so they can colour it in
