Boris Johnson had one overriding priority in his final days in Downing Street: racking up a £450,000 bill for the long-suffering taxpayer on flights for just six overseas trips. Transparency disclosures from the Cabinet Office show the PM chose to use either a “private jet or RAF plane” for five away-days and a single two-night trip between February 1 and March 24.
“There’s no reason why prime ministers can’t travel on commercial flights when security isn’t an overriding consideration and Tony Blair made a point of doing so, especially when holidaying,” my man in Whitehall whispers. “Johnson by contrast has always felt the need to travel in lavish style.”
Just the prime minister’s day return to Kyiv to pose for photographs on February 1 set the taxpayer back £63,033; a further £70,145 was splashed out on a two-stop visit to Brussels and Warsaw on February 10; it cost £46,087 to get him to Munich on February 19; a two-stop visit to Warsaw and Tallinn for “bilateral talks and a speech” on March 1 cost £74,478; then there was the £37,371 to get him to a Nato summit in Brussels on March 24. His two-night jaunt to Abu Dhabi and Riyadh undertaken between March 15 and 17 was the most expensive of the lot – flight costs for him and his entourage retailing at £156,268. Johnson chose to take a total of 147 officials with him on the trips.
Travelling in a grand style at other people’s expense became a habit of Johnson during his Daily Telegraph and Spectator days where he regarded the travel editors of both publications as his personal travel agents.
