Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Home Office: Come fly with me?

As is commonly known these days, the Labour Party, during the finanical crisis, have taken the decision to try and create a narrative that the Tories are the "do nothing" party. This policy comes through in everything they say, even down to official Government press releases which make a point of stressing the words "real help" all the time.

It seems to me though that perhaps the Tories need to find some other narratuves to label the Labour party as well, and having just seen the figures in Hansard for how many air miles were travelled on domestic, short-haul and long-haul flights by the Home Office last year I think obvious choice is the "do as we say, not as we do" party.

Last year, the Home Office, achieved the staggering figure of 3,115,863 air miles on domestic flights alone. Meanwhile the Home Office did 1,626,114 miles on short-haul and 3,980,766 on long-haul. Apparently this is OK though because the Home Office "ensures the Department offsets carbon dioxide emissions from its official air travel."

Frankly this is beside the point. We, the proles, are constantly being told that climate change is going to kill the entire world. That we should avoid unnecessarily wasting energy, certainly not take domestic flights when the trains will do. We're bombarded with adverts about "Acting on CO2" and here we have the Home Office doing the equivalent of about 12 round trips from London to Edinburgh every day for a whole year?!?
Hansard

14 comments:

Obnoxio The Clown said...

They seem to like the "headless chicken" tag a lot more. So I'm sticking to that one. ;o)

Chris Paul said...

Would this include returning over-stayers and failed asylum seekers Dizzy?

dizzy said...

Why would be returning overstayer and asylum seekers on domestic flights?

Letters From A Tory said...

Labour certainly are giving 'real help', the problem is that this help is going to the public sector where employment is still rising even though the private sector is in meltdown.

Anonymous said...

a narrative that the Tories are the "do nothing" party

If only they were. I might be more inclined to vote for them.

Lord Blagger said...

Doesn't matter. AGW is bollocks anyway.

The proof of the pudding. If I offset my carbon, can I be exempt the taxes?

If so, I'll pay them. At about 10 quid a tonne, I can get off all the car tax, fuel tax, flight tax, and save hundreds.

It's all about the tax and being fucking hypocrites

Nick

Chris Paul said...

I believe that they do sometimes use domestic flights. They take detained over-stayers etc from the likes of Dallas Court in Salford (which is the main signing place in Manchester) to another holding area at Manchester Airport and then - depending on what direct onward flights are available from compliant carriers - to Heathrow or wherever. In fact I know for a fact they use Domestic flights for this, sometimes at least.

And this would certainly explain some of the external flying, iff it is included.

dizzy said...

What's wrong with a train?

Conand said...

Real Damage Now

Real Hypocrisy Now

Anonymous said...

What with the three thousand new laws NuLab have introduced we are all criminals now, therefore making the actual criminals feel that they aren't being discriminated against.

That's the NuLab way, stomping on excellence lower the common denominator to quote Melanie Phillips 'All shall have prizes' problem is the prizes now mean shit.

Labour, the party that has bankrupted Britain until at least 2030. And we still have to fork out billions for that two weeks athletic event in 2012.
I'm sure there are a team of consultant accountants working on sexing up the outragous cost of this abomination to make it palatable for public consumption.
I doubt though that even they can polish a turd to that extent.

Chris Paul said...

Generally it's arguably cheaper to fly when your travel plans are a bit 'last minute' which is usually the way in these matters.

And OMG the Euston to Heathrow trip would be a joy for a reluctant returnee (singular) never mind a family and UKBA chaperone(s). Think things through Dizz mate. They use flights from various holding areas at airports to those at or close by Heathrow.

dizzy said...

You just don't get it do you

Anonymous said...

Chris Paul; What's wrong with the bus?

Chris Paul said...

What I get Dizzy is that it is all very well getting these statistics but that it pays to consider alternative explanations instead of jumping to conclusions. Unless you don't give a shit about getting things right or not?