Boris Johnson's painted plane

[Theworldisfullofgs]

Am I completely out of touch? I can't tell anymore.

Is spending £900k on painting a plane ridiculous at any time and even more so right now?

If it was due to be repainted (do planes need this periodically?)then fine, do it up in pretty colours.

But utterly crass to do it other than for necessary maintenance.

I'd spend £900k on laptops and LA tutors for all current shielded DC, establish a small reserve to cover this for DC who become ill and require shielding in coming months.

And anything left over into the novel/discretionary drugs fund - it's going to be needed soon, as the backlog of cancer diagnoses is going to hit hard and pretty soon.

@KingJarvisofPulp

It’s the same cost as being in the EU for 33 mins. It’s fuck all in the grand scheme of things

Apparently it is too much though when it comes to spending money on people who might need it, viz school meals (although thankfully BoJo has done a u-turn on that one)

The media are making a right frothy meal out of this one.

It's an RAF plane with multiple uses, not just carting Boris about. They get repainted, it costs money. It isn't something they have just decided to do at his request in the middle of a pandemic.

I agree it was probably planned ages ago but that is no excuse.

The tendering process comes to a conclusion, whichever minister is in charge or whoever gets the result.

And at that point should think. This looks shit right now. We'll delay it. Easy.

In the midst of a pandemic, it's quite reasonable to rethink painting a plane.

It's weird that they announced it. It's like they're actually trolling us.

Is this true? I’ve been racking my brains to work our how it could cost so much - gold paint with diamonds by Damien Hirst (in a very large tank of formaldehyde)?

Boris complained about the grey colour of it when he was foreign secretary so he has OK'd this now which is completely abhorrent given what people are going through

If it was necessary they should have said 'we are doing this because it's due, and if we don't it could get rust (or whatever) and that will be much more expensive in the long run. We know it looks bad but it's a scheduled thing.

But they didn't as far as I can see.

They announced it like we would be delighted. So tone deaf it's untrue

@ohoneohtwo

The media are making a right frothy meal out of this one.

It's an RAF plane with multiple uses, not just carting Boris about. They get repainted, it costs money. It isn't something they have just decided to do at his request in the middle of a pandemic.

It's an RAF plane which would usually get repainted in grey, just like the rest of the fleet. It wouldn't cost anything like £900k. But that's not good enough for Boris. In 2018, he said he'd like a "Brexit plane" and here it is.

He must be proper pissed off that he's not getting to fly round the world, in his Union Jack shorts, waving his flags, from this plane right now, instead of having to attempt to deal with a pandemic.

He's an absolute bell end. He shows utter contempt to us all.

Do they paint it back to grey if it gets redeployed?

It's for the Brexit people I assume they're painting it red white and blue.

These trivial things seem terribly important to lots of them eg blue passports (mine was black though?!).

It's a message to them.

And this...

'If Johnson wants to increase the government’s access to the plane by buying more flying hours from the Ministry of Defence, it could increase the knock-on costs to the taxpayer because the military will be forced to charter aircraft for its own needs.'

Bloody ridiculous, particularly the timing but I'm sure that there are some who'll love it. Idiots.

I guess the issue is that visiting Trump with a grey plane would have hurt PM Johnson's ego.

It's an RAF plane which would usually get repainted in grey, just like the rest of the fleet. It wouldn't cost anything like £900k. But that's not good enough for Boris. In 2018, he said he'd like a "Brexit plane" and here it is.

My point was that being an RAF aircraft it has multiple uses, and that this isn't something that he has suddenly decided last week.

Not a fan of Boris but fully aware of the aviation side of things.

Am I being cynical in guessing that this will be rethought by Friday? Will it become "just a suggestion" or "an ambition" rather than a firm plan. I have this vision in my mind of a rapidly dwindling heap of fag packets at Tory HQ, on the back of which half-baked ideas can be scrawled.

Absolutely disgusting.

It’s absolutely bizarre and bonkers.

Is this another dead cat?

They should have painted it burgundy to match the new passports.

I would have though bright colours like red, white and blue would be a bit crap for an RAF plane that has other uses like refuelling. Aren't they gray for a reason. So as not to stand out?

SecondaryBurnzzz

Dead cats don't bounce as high as they used to. I think it's a complication of covid.

SecondaryBurnzzz

Dead cats don't bounce as high as they used to. I think it's a complication of covid.

They should paint '£350 million per week to the NHS' on the side of it