AT THE height of the UK’s post-financial crisis austerity measures in 2010 then prime minister David Cameron caused something of a stir in the US when he arrived there, flying business class, on a scheduled British Airways (BA) flight to attend high-level meetings. The stir was in part because the meetings had to be scheduled around the BA schedule, which didn’t necessarily suit other heads of government. But it was mainly because the media in the US, with that country’s hugely expensive Air Force One and Air Force Two fleet, was impressed at Cameron’s belt-tightening gesture. Not that this is unusual in the UK, where the royals and the prime minister do fly commercial sometimes and use dedicated air force planes or charters other times. Controversially, the Cameron government did invest in 2016 in a new aircraft for the use of the prime minister and senior government officials. But Cameron also managed to go viral on social media during the summer holidays when he was sighted flyin...
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