The train ticket would’ve cost Sunak £30 return, yet he opted to travel by air, at a cost to the taxpayer in the region of £6,000.

The Tories would like you to believe that they care about climate change and the effective use of taxpayers’ money, yet their actions show the complete opposite.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is fond of taking helicopters and private jets for short trips and is now once more being slammed for using a taxpayer-funded helicopter to make a journey that would have taken little more than an hour on the train.

Sunak took a chopper to Southampton to attend a GP surgery and pharmacy to promote the government’s latest intervention to reduce the strain on GP practices.

According to train timetables, had the Prime Minister taken the 8:35am train from Waterloo he would have arrived in Southampton at 9:50am. That Sunak decided to fly to the port city and back via helicopter has led to some Tory MPs fearing that it will cement Sunak’s image as an out of touch Prime Minister.

The train ticket would’ve cost Sunak £30 return, yet he opted to travel by air, at a cost to the taxpayer in the region of £6,000.

One Tory MP told the Guardian: “Is it unfair to say that the weekend was about a powerful unelected individual who is unfeasibly wealthy and lacks the common touch … and King Charles III?”

“To go backwards from our results in 2019 when we lost 1,300 seats is a damning indictment of the public view of the government. To outperform our own very low expectations is appalling.”

A Labour source was quoted in the Mirror saying: “While Keir Starmer was working with 20 new Labour councils to bring in new cost of living action plans, Rishi Sunak was gallivanting around in a helicopter for a journey which would have taken an hour on the train.

“Last week, the British public told the Prime Minister to get his head out of the clouds – it seems he just isn’t listening.”

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward