Blair's plane flew 1,400 miles to get banquet as PM discussed starvation

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair's personal plane flew over 1,400 miles across Africa to collect a gourmet meal, it emerged yesterday.

The chartered British Airways jet made a 1,450-mile round trip from Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to Nairobi in Kenya to pick up the banquet for the Premier and his entourage for their flight home to London.

The dinner - including asparagus mousse, prawn risotto and cheesecake - had already been flown out to Kenya from London on a normal flight. But the premier did not even have the meal because he had already eaten in Addis Ababa. Mr Blair had been in Ethiopia for a meeting of his Africa Commission - which was discussing starvation and poverty.

BA said it had to make the trip to Kenya as that was its nearest base to Ethiopia.

A spokesman said it could not have flown the food with Mr Blair four days earlier as it would have spoiled.

"We don't have a base in Ethiopia. During the downtime in Ethiopia the plane flew to Nairobi to pick up the food," he said.

The decision was taken by BA, apparently without the knowledge of Downing Street. BA has come under fire from green campaigners who said it was unjustifiable to use thousands of gallons of fuel to collect a meal. But the BA spokesman said: "We have to look after our passengers and we would rather feed them than let them starve."

A Downing Street spokeswoman said: "It would appear this exercise was undertaken to feed the travelling press as the Prime Minister and his party had already eaten."