UK Politics
Three Extra Jet Flights So Burnham Could Watch Everton
Guido: Burnham’s Everton night meant three extra Falcon/A321 flights. Labour attacked Tory jets in opposition. No10 calls it value for money.
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Should ministers stop using taxpayer jets for convenience trips home?
News | By Matt, Editor
Three extra private-jet flights. That is what Guido Fawkes says Andy Burnham’s Thursday night at Everton added to a week of government air travel, before the Prime Minister and his wife were collected in Manchester by the official A321 for Antigua.
Guido’s Friday timeline tracks a Dassault Falcon 900lx empty-leg into Manchester on Thursday afternoon, Burnham photographed at the Hill Dickinson Stadium that evening, then Falcon shuttles for Friday’s National Economic Council in Glasgow, and a Monday A321 diversion from Stansted to Manchester to pick the couple up for the Commonwealth summit.
Key facts
- Guido (6 Nov): Thursday Falcon empty into Manchester so Burnham could attend Everton at Hill Dickinson; Friday Falcon Manchester–Glasgow–Manchester for the NEC; Monday A321 Stansted–Manchester–Antigua (via Newfoundland) collecting Burnham and Marie-France.
- Guido’s framing: three additional jet movements versus a cleaner itinerary that did not park the Falcon for a football night.
- BBC and the Guardian (2 Nov): No10 defended the Monday Manchester pickup as reflecting security, cost and “operational requirements”; Burnham had been in Scotland on Friday then worked from Number 10 North.
- Shadow cabinet minister Neil O’Brien (quoted by BBC): Labour managed to “waste taxpayers’ money and jet fuel so they can posture”.
- A separate Guido/MEN figure of around £20,000 has circulated for the Manchester diversion alone. Treat it as an attributed estimate, not a Cabinet Office published line item. Overseas VIP-jet costs appear only in quarterly transparency data.
- Labour in opposition attacked Tory use of the same A321. Rayner (2022/23) and Reeves (2023) quotes are reproduced by Guido.
What No10 said
Asked why Burnham did not travel to London first, his official spokesman told reporters the travel arrangements “reflect where he was carrying out official government business at the end of last week” and that he spent Friday in Scotland before returning to Manchester. Pippa Crerar relayed the “security, operational requirements, and value for money” formula on X.
That is the same formula governments always use when the diary looks awkward. Security is real. So is the choice to structure the week around Manchester rather than overnighting near Stansted.
The opposition quotes Labour now owns
Guido lined up Labour’s own lines from opposition:
- Rayner, 2022, on Liz Truss’s A321 use: it showed “exactly quite how little respect this Conservative government has for taxpayers’ money.”
- Reeves, 2023: “First, we will crack down on Tory ministers’ private jet habit… We will enforce the ministerial code on the use of private planes and save millions of pounds for taxpayers in the process.”
- Rayner, 2023: “looking down from his private jet, Rishi Sunak can’t understand why young people can’t get on the housing ladder.”
- Labour press release, 2024: criticism of short-haul taxpayer-funded luxury aircraft trips “that could have been taken by road or train.”
Those lines were aimed at Conservatives. They now sit next to a Falcon parked for a football night and an A321 diverted to Number 10 North. That is the said-versus-did point, and it does not need embroidery.
Hour by hour, as Guido has it
Thursday afternoon: Burnham does Budget promo work in Derby, then heads to Manchester on the ground. At 4.12pm a government Falcon 900lx flies London to Manchester and parks. At 7.45pm Burnham and his wife are photographed at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium, about 30 miles away, celebrating a win.
Friday: the Falcon leaves Manchester for Glasgow at 7.34am with Burnham. A second Falcon leaves London for Glasgow at 10.21am, thought to be carrying John Healey. Burnham chairs the National Economic Council at lunchtime. His Falcon returns Glasgow to Manchester at 2.58pm. The second jet goes Glasgow to Northolt. At 4.28pm Burnham’s Falcon leaves Manchester without him, changing callsign.
Monday: after the weekend in Manchester, the larger A321 leaves Stansted at 6.05am without Burnham, lands Manchester at 6.39am to collect him and Marie-France, and departs at 8.06am for Antigua via Newfoundland. That Monday leg is the one BBC, Telegraph and Guardian already put on the record.
Same week, different bills
This is not the £2.4 billion Skynet Lockheed choice or the £4.7 billion border-check programmes Labour’s food deal may scrap. It is not today’s 36-pesticide SPS phase-out. It is the smaller habit that tells readers whether the big lectures about taxpayer cash stick when the diary gets inconvenient.
The Telegraph and local coverage of the Monday diversion already put the Manchester pickup on the record earlier this week. Guido’s Friday piece adds the Everton Thursday that made the Falcon empty-leg and the follow-on shuttles necessary.
Value for money, whose?
VIP travel for a prime minister is normal. Empty positioning flights so the diary can include a home football match, then a second Falcon for a Glasgow day-trip, then an A321 that leaves Stansted without the PM so it can collect him in Manchester, is a political choice.
No10’s answer is security and operations. Fine. Publish the Falcon empty-leg costs next to the quarterly A321 transparency tables and let voters judge whether “value for money” means the same thing in government as it did in opposition.
Manchester Evening News and Guido have both put a roughly £20,000 tag on the Manchester diversion chatter. Cabinet Office transparency for April to June 2026, cited by the BBC, listed a Starmer Paris hop at £39,000 and an Armenia EPC trip at £121,000. Readers already know these airframes are not cheap.
Net Zero lectures land differently when the same government burns jet fuel on positioning legs that exist because the Prime Minister wanted Thursday night at home. O’Brien’s “posture” line may be partisan. The flight times are not.
Our view
Labour spent years sneering at Tory jets. Then Burnham’s week needed a Falcon parked for Everton and an A321 Uber to Number 10 North. If the ministerial code crackdown was real, publish the empty-leg bill and stop calling it value for money.
Should ministers stop using taxpayer jets for convenience trips home? Vote in our poll below.
Sources
- Guido Fawkes, 6 November 2026: TIMELINE of private jet flights that meant Burnham could watch the Everton game (flight times and Everton attendance as reported by Guido)
- BBC News, 2 November 2026: No10 defends flight to Manchester to collect Andy Burnham (Ewan Somerville); Neil O’Brien quote
- The Guardian, 2 November 2026: No 10 defends Caribbean flight going via Manchester
- The Telegraph, 2 November 2026: Burnham’s plane picked PM up from Manchester before Caribbean flight
- Manchester Evening News: Downing Street on roughly £20,000 Manchester stop claim
- Posts on X by Guido Fawkes, Pippa Crerar and others (embedded above)
- Main image: Andy Burnham, 13 August 2024, Wikimedia Commons, Scottish Government, CC BY 2.0 (cropped). Different photo from the Commons 2026 headshots used earlier today.
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Have your say
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So this NET ZERO nonsense only applies to us, does it ?
I wonder what ‘Wallace’ thinks about it ?
The sooner these parasites, living off OUR TAX MONEY, are OUT of Office, the better-off and safer this country will be !
Your reaction
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Welcome to Burnham’s socialist utopia……….where some comrades are more equal than others. 🤡