Foreign Office officials enjoyed a £50,000 drink in the air on the Prime Minister’s plane – as millions prepare for a cost of living crisis, it was alleged last night.
Campaigners reacted furiously to photos of the ‘giggling’ mandarins boarding the plane, dubbed ‘Baby Boris Force One’, where they will have enjoyed cream leather seats with faux wood panels, luxurious crystal glasses and fine china crockery.
They relaxed on a 700 mile round trip from Stansted airport to the Lake District and back again for what the government called a ‘maintenance trip’.
The staff reportedly ate a fancy dinner while the State Department was on the . has confirmed Sun there was alcohol on board, but refused to say if any was being consumed. Sources said the cost of the jolly was likely around £50,000.
The group of 12 men and women — who would normally have been working on important foreign issues, possibly including the war in Ukraine — seemed to be basking in their VIP-esque day out, taking selfies on the red carpet laid out for them. and again after boarding the Airbus A321, according to reports.
Labour’s Shadow Trade Secretary Emily Thornberry said: ‘This would be utterly disgraceful in the best of times, but in the midst of our country’s current crisis it is indescribably shameful.’
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added: “Taxpayers will wonder why pen lickers had the privilege of trying out a government jet.”
Staff relaxed on a 700 mile round trip from Stansted airport to the Lake District and back again for what the government called a ‘maintenance trip’
The plane enjoyed by officials, which was recently the subject of a £900,000 new paint job, is expected to take the new Prime Minister to Balmoral to be sworn in by the Queen next Tuesday
Boris Johnson and wife Carrie walk after disembarking from their plane as they arrive for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Kigali, Rwanda
Officials have been accused of enjoying a range of benefits in recent months, including deals to work from home permanently.
Official figures show that the number of government employees with special ‘work from home’ contracts has nearly tripled since the pandemic.
There were 183 homeworkers in eight of Whitehall’s key departments in 2019-20, rising to 309 the following year and 530 in 2021-22.
The biggest increase came in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), where the number rose from 117 before Covid hit to 380 earlier this year.
At the Work and Pensions Service (DWP), the number rose from 14 to 60 in the same period.
Meanwhile, experts warned that new gilded pensions being handed out to MPs, civil servants and other public sector workers will cost taxpayers an additional £6 billion this year alone due to rampant inflation.
This will add to the huge annual bill for retired state employees, which already stands at £60 billion – a third more than the entire defense budget.
It will also lead to a simmering row over ‘retirement apartheid’ between generous public sector provisions and the inferior, risky schemes for wealth-creating private sector workers.
It comes against the backdrop of mounting pressure on ordinary families, with the boss of the UK’s third-largest energy company admitting millions are heading for ‘a winter like never before’ amid claims that the number of Britons living in poverty will rise from three million to 14 million.
Ovo Energy chief Stephen Fitzpatrick has said helping low-income families with energy bills “should be the first order of business” for the next prime minister with an annual gas and electricity bill expected to be £7,263 in April.
And inflation could reach 22.4 percent next year if gas prices remain as high as they are now, according to a terrifying forecast from Goldman Sachs.
The plane enjoyed by officials, which was recently the subject of a £900,000 new paint job, is expected to take the new Prime Minister to Balmoral to be sworn in by the Queen next Tuesday.
A government spokesman told The Sun: “In order to comply with Airbus and aviation industry regulations, the aircraft was required by law to operate a maintenance flight before September 4, otherwise it would face significant additional storage costs.”