Keir Starmer flies to Scotland on private jet hours after mocking PM over helicopter use

Sir Keir Starmer has been caught out using a private jet to fly to Scotland, just hours after the Labour Party tore into Rishi Sunak for travelling by helicopter.

The Labour leader is in Glasgow this morning, promoting his big environmental offering of GB Energy, which has already been mocked after the party was caught using a £35 stock image is its new logo.

After a tip-off that Sir Keir dodged public transport and instead opted to go by private jet, a Labour spokesman has now told the Express that the demands of the election campaign require Sir Keir to use “efficient travel”.

Unable to deny the charge, the Labour spokesman said: “To engage with as many UK voters as possible with our offer of change, the campaign demands efficient travel.”

They added: “All our flights are carbon offset.”

Labour has repeatedly criticised Rishi Sunak for failing to travel on public transport, and frequently using private planes.

However this morning’s allegation of hypocrisy will be compounded by the fact that just hours before Sir Keir jetted off in his private aircraft, Labour was busy mocking Rishi Sunak on social media for using a helicopter after a campaign event.

Following a story in the Mirror, Labour published a mocking photoshop of Twitter, captioned: “Rishi Sunak taking his dog for a walk”.

In January, Labour published a post on their website that described Mr Sunak as “out-of-touch” and blasted him for using private jets.

They also criticised him for hiking taxes on domestic flights for UK passengers, but not increasing taxes for private jet passengers.

They described the Prime Minister’s travel choice as “elitist”.

More awkwardly for Labour, in January 2023 Angela Rayner said that Mr Sunak’s 230-mile journey to Blackpool made a mockery of the Prime Minister’s environmental strategy.

The outspoken deputy Labour leader accused Mr Sunak of “jetting around the country on taxpayers' money like an A-list celeb”.

A Tory source told the Express: “Not for the first time Sir Keir has been shown up as a massive hypocrite”.

“Getting on a private jet to launch a clip art logo alongside Angela Rayner who is openly undermining him is peak Starmer.”

Tory chairman Richard Holden said: “Nothing better illustrates Starmerism than the fact Sir Keir has flown on a private jet to Scotland, to launch a stock logo of something u-turning in on itself, for an energy company which won’t produce any energy – that’s not a plan to keep our energy secure and our country protected from Putin".

Asked about the revelation following his Glasgow speech, Sir Keir admitted to the political faux pas.

He confessed: "Yes, we did use a private jet because we needed to get very quickly to Scotland from Wales yesterday".

"We have to use the most efficient form of transport in the middle of a very, very busy, general election campaign. We offset the carbon. We always do whatever we use transport in the air. So, that’s the approach we’re taking.

"We’ve got five weeks to take our argument to the country. I need to get across the country to speak to as many people as possible and from time to time we have to do it as efficiently as possible."