If you're surprised that Boris Johnson wants a Brexit plane, you've forgotten how much of your money this spoilt brat already wasted

It’s becoming pretty sickening to hear Johnson talk about splashing out money the government doesn’t have on pointless presents to himself, because it highlights how he’s been getting away with doing just that for so long

Boris probably had a bigger plane in mind (Reuters)

Boris Johnson is under fire once more, this time because he wants his own plane to transport him around the world and make it easier to cook up all those post-Brexit trade deals he’s promised.

He isn’t satisfied with sporadic trips on the Prime Minister’s Voyager aircraft, mainly because it’s grey. He also apparently isn’t satisfied with his frequent foreign forays - these comments were made on a visit to Buenos Aires.

No, a brand new “flagship” is just the ticket, according to Boris. But he might find it a hard sell when it comes to taxpayers, especially with UK households under increasing financial pressure.

The Bank of England’s governor Mark Carney said on Tuesday that Brexit, of which Johnson was a particularly vocal proponent, has already knocked around 2 per cent off the size of the UK economy, which translates to a toll of £900 per UK household.

Some people will not suffer from a £900 dip in funds, but for others, losing that amount will be a serious blow. For people struggling to cope financially, the idea of the Foreign Office spending millions on a private plane will stick in the throat, even if it is passed off as more jokes and japes from good old Boris.

Of course, he wouldn’t be Boris if he wasn’t coming up with some vanity project or another, and he certainly has form when it comes to air travel – remember Boris Island? But it’s becoming pretty sickening to hear him talk about splashing out money the government doesn’t have on pointless presents to himself, because it highlights how he’s been getting away with doing just that for so long.

Take the infamous water cannon. When he was Mayor of London, Johnson forked out hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy a water cannon, and admittedly, he was within his power to do so. However, he did not have the power to authorise the use of the water cannon, because he wasn’t the Mayor of Belfast (but that’s a story for another day). The controversial equipment gathered dust for years, until they were put on the market by Johnson’s successor, Sadiq Khan. Those water cannon, never used, are still up for sale.

Then there’s the Garden Bridge, which seems so ridiculous looking back on it, it’s hard to believe it really happened at all. It’s even harder to believe that it cost £46m of taxpayers’ money. That’s £46m for a project that never even got off the ground, not to mention the time and energy that was wasted on something that wasn’t even aimed at improving life for millions of struggling Londoners. What use is a garden over the river, when most people in the capital are facing the prospect that no matter how much they work and scrimp and save, they’ll never own a house?

But Boris has only gone from strength to strength. Despite the fact that his tenure as London mayor cost staggering amounts of money with few visible results, he now holds one of the most important positions in the Cabinet.

And he still thinks it’s fine to ask for more. Well, of course he does, because he’s never suffered any consequences of his expensive blunders. Boris is still OK and I’m betting his bank balance is a lot better than OK.

Maybe, instead of ignoring the results of Boris’ spending sprees as they’ve previously done, his superiors should instead focus on them. Note that he’s asking for this plane to help him boost Britain’s prospects post-Brexit. He has promised trade deals on trade deals, but nothing has actually been agreed yet. Maybe if the PM tells him “Boris, you can have a plane once we’ve got all those shiny new agreements ‘pencilled in’”, he might do the work he’s paid to do.