Scottish Politics
David Cameron flies the flag...on an Angolan plane
David Cameron used a plane from a controversial Angolan state oil company for his Asian trade trip.
Prime Minister David Cameron (C) at Halim Perdana Kusuma airport in Jakarta, Indonesia Photo: EPA/BEAWIHARTA
By Rowena Mason
9:59AM BST 11 Apr 2012
Instead of using British Airways or Virgin, the Prime Minister's trade delegation of more than 30 businessmen flew on a SonAir charter plane.
SonAir is owned by Sonangol, an Angolan state company, which was subject to an investigation by the International Monetary Fund over £20billion of missing oil revenues.
Angola explained that the oil company carries out spending on its behalf and the discrepancy was due to insufficient record–keeping, which the IMF accepted.
But Human Rights Watch said the explanation was "not persuasive" and has called for loans to the African country to be suspended until it could account for all the funds.
Last night, Downing Street sources said they had not known the Prime Minister would be flying on a SonAir plane. It is understood the Prime Minister's usual choice of airlines could not make the logistics of the trip to Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Burma work within four days.
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His team ended up booking a charter plane with Atlas Air, which uses SonAir planes. A Downing Street source said: "After exploring other operators we decided to go with Atlas Air on the basis they could best match our requirements."
Despite the plane's origins, it had Union flags on display when it took off from Heathrow on Monday.
A Labour source said: "David Cameron's commitment to flying the flag for British business is as shallow as his pre–election pledge to support the NHS."
Mr Cameron said the purpose of the trip was to "get our exports up" and "fly the flag for Britain".
The Prime Minister also defended the presence of arms manufacturers as part of the delegation. He said the defence sector accounted for a lot of jobs, while we "have some of the toughest rules on defence exports anywhere in the world".
He said there were opportunities to boost arms sales to Japan, which mainly bought American equipment in the past.
Rowena Mason »