Plain plane go away: UK PM orders official jet paint job
Last updated on: 17 June,2020 09:29 am
Plain plane go away: UK PM orders official jet paint job
LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson doesn’t like the plain plane he uses for state visits and has ordered a more colourful makeover to fly the flag for Britain, it was reported Tuesday.
"Boris doesn’t like it being grey. He is getting it painted up," an unnamed defence source told Britain’s Sky News television.
The paint job on the RAF Voyager transport plane sounds like something "from Austin Powers", the source added.
The Austin Powers character flew around on a psychedelic-coloured Boeing 747 in the "Goldmember" film of the 1990s spoof spy franchise.
Johnson’s office did not immediately reply to an AFP request for comment.
The military aircraft is reportedly getting its makeover at an airport in Cambridge and would be ready by the end of the month.
Johnson demanded his own "Brexit plane" when he was travelling the world as Britain’s foreign minister in 2018.
The UK was then still more than a year removed from officially leaving the European Union and Johnson was drumming up his vision of an independent Britain abroad.
He quit the government that same year in protest at Prime Minister Theresa May’s more light-touch approach to Brexit.
But he stormed back to power as head of the Conservative party and the government last year.
Johnson complained in 2018 that he had to share the "grey" RAF Voyager with Prime Minister May and the occasional member of the royal family.
"The taxpayers won’t want us to have some luxurious new plane, but I certainly think it’s striking that we don’t seem to have access to such a thing at the moment," Johnson said when asked if he would like his own "Brexit plane" in 2018.