Tony Blair flies commercial??

[Lestat]

<font color="blue">"We find it extraordinary that while senior Royals have pulled in their horns to save public money, Mr Blair can take his family around Europe in this extravagant manner," a Buckingham Palace aide was quoted as saying in The Mail on Sunday. </font>

LOL!!! I find it EXTRAORDINARY that an entire country still wastes their time on royalty! Talk about a waste of government funds... What do they spend pampering those blue bloods anyway?

I know I'll get flamed by those from the UK, but catering to so-called royalty is insane! Of course, that's just my opinion and I'll be the first to admit we waste tons of money on stupider stuff right here in the good old USA!

[El Diablo]

L,

I haven't spent much time in the UK in the last few years, but when I was last spending a lot of time there (up through 2001), a lot of people in the UK felt the same way as you re: the royalty.

[Terry Tidy]

There's also the, often used, argument that having the monarchy generates a lot of tourist income. Unless I'm mistaken, the royal family now receive fairly small (around £8million in total I think) amounts of cash from the government.

Admittedly that must just represent the cash part and not all the extras they get free.

But very true, few people in the UK idolise the queen.

[Terry Tidy]

The BBC says the royal family costs the country "cost" £37million

[Wondercall]

Mr. Blair also gets the privilege of the US secret service while he visits the states.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

There was some fuzz in Sweden with the prime minister chartering a plane and it was for a private visit, then it became a small media hype about it in several countries and put some politicians in a bad light, so I think it is mostly a PR-issue to avoid headlines like "PM's vacation cost 20k of taxpayer's money", nobody would critizise him doing it on a state visit. To fly commercial the way they fly it can't be cheap though, I know the Norwegian government has an agreement with several commercial airlines that if the PM or ministers want to fly they will always get a seat, no matter where and when.