Are politicians ever justified in travelling by private jet?

The home secretary, James Cleverly, spent some £165,561 last year chartering a private jet for a one-day round trip to Rwanda to sign a fresh treaty that would, supposedly, negate the UK Supreme Court's finding of fact that Rwanda is not a safe third country for the deportation of refugees.

- SEAN O'GRADY

The sudden urgent demand for new assurances about human rights from the Rwandans was, it is fair to say, politically driven, as the prime minister sees the Rwanda plan as the key “deterrent” in his struggle to “stop the boats” full of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.

The revelation is troublesome because it reinforces the charge that this is a government with a profligate attitude to taxpayers’ money; that its ministers enjoy indulging themselves; and that the Rwanda scheme is, as Cleverly once repeatedly remarked in probate, a “batshit” crazy waste of money. Chartering a private jet is also, if anyone still cares, one of the most environmentally destructive ways to travel by air. Politically, the turbulence generated by such trips can be extremely distressing...

What’s the problem?

One of the most powerful charges that the media can throw at a serving politician – only a couple of steps down from conspiracy to murder (and that has happened) – is “hypocrisy”. Any minister who spends their time lecturing anyone who will listen about waste and extravagance in government, and then gets caught using a private jet, may expect some unsympathetic coverage.

Cleverly may claim that his trip was within the rules, and that it was a diplomatic breakthrough that will serve the country well for decades to come, but the impression is that he couldn’t wait a few days to take a scheduled flight to Kigali. Besides which, the Labour opposition – if, as is almost certain, it forms the next government – will cancel the entire Rwanda plan, quite possibly before a single flight has taken off.