Blair Force One.

It's not that British politics is actually any more silly than North American politics. But the current dustup over the possibility of Tony Blair getting his own jet really is pretty funny. The situation got so bad for Blair a couple of weeks ago that he and his wife took a well-publicized econoflight from Rome to London (which, of course, their presence held up by half an hour, requiring the importation of sniffer dogs).

Not surprisingly, the editors of the Tory-leaning Telegraph are Fox News-style outraged at the potential extravagence. But an Observer panel is more sympathetic. Here's how one panelist put it:

Those who criticise the Prime Minister for ordering two private jets are being petty. The planes will be shared with the Queen; all the PM's flights for the past two years have been, we are assured, carbonneutral and the additional cost of the jets is relatively modest. The Prime Minister has an official residence, so why the outrage over an official plane? Rather Tony Blair or Gordon Brown in a private jet than the cynical, cycling Cameron with accompanying car conveniently out of sight. American Presidents have had official planes for more than 60 years. Last week's announcement merely confirms the drift towards presidential politics in this country and signals that, these days, the Prime Minister is more than simply first among equals..


Hmm, the Guardian and Telegraph reports both made a similar complaint, though with various degrees of tongue-in-cheek: too American. Post-Iraq, that's got to be the last thing Blair wants to be reading all the time.