The Times - Minister pursues green brief as queen of the Royal Flight: Margaret Beckett, the Cabinet minister responsible for the environment, is one of the most enthusiastic users of the Queen's Flight, regularly summoning its aircraft to collect her from her local airport. Mrs Beckett, whose department is responsible for reducing carbon emissions and air travel across government, has cost the taxpayer more than £100,000 on 110 flights in three years. Her department has not offset the carbon emissions from the flights. Other than ministers with an overseas brief and Tony Blair, Mrs Beckett cost the taxpayer more in flights than any other minister. She has made repeated public statements about the environmental dangers of air travel...

BlairWatch - Blair Airways: Now that it has been revealed that Blair and his ministers have been treating the RAF like a free taxi service they're desperately trying to pretend it's cheaper than other methods of transport. Bullshit.

Guy Fawkes - Air Miles Spin Don't Fly: New Labour's spinmeisters knew the Air Miles story was coming and they went into damage limitation mode. Much was (they knew) going to be made of the hypocrisy of the environment minister decrying carbon emissions while flying on RAF jets to her constituency home. How would they spin Margaret Beckett's greater use of the Queen’s Flight than the Queen herself? Easy, you claim it is cheaper than getting the Eurostar to Brussels. Never mind that is a lie.

Scotsman.com - Prime Minister is using Queen's Flight 'like a taxi': Tony Blair has been accused of treating the RAF aircraft the Queen's Flight like a "private taxi service". The Prime Minister has flown on the plane more than 670 times since 1997 - including trips on family holidays - at a total cost of £1.22 million. And cabinet colleagues, including Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett, have used the planes for short-haul trips to Brussels - sometimes via her constituency. Downing Street insisted the flights were only used for Government business and when it was the most efficient way to travel.

Guardian - No 10 defends PM's flight to Rover plant: The prime minister, Tony Blair, used an RAF helicopter in the middle of the general election campaign to fly up to MG Rover's Longbridge plant following the collapse of the company, it was disclosed today.

You know what's coming, don't you?

Yep, the ever-reliable threat of terrorism presented - as always - in the form of a false dichotomy. According to Michael White, it's this or the bus... and terrorists bomb buses...