A chance to one-up Tony

We're not sure what happened to Bertie Ahern's plan a few years ago to purchase a new Irish government jet, but if he's looking for an excuse to revive it, consider the dilemma of Tony Blair, stuck in South Africa on a day of tight Commons votes because of trouble with his charter:

But as Mr Blair's chartered jet was taxiing down the runway at Johannesburg International airport late last night, the pilot noticed sparks coming out of one of the airplane's three engines and aborted take-off.

Mr Blair’s spokesman said: "At about 11pm South African time, they were due to take off. They had started the run down the runway. They hadn’t got very far when the pilot noticed something wrong with engine No 3. They shut down the engine, aborted take-off, and went back to the terminal.

"Being 11pm South African time, there weren’t any other planes and they couldn’t have arranged an alternative to get them back in time for the ID card vote. He will travel back overnight tonight."

Asked whether it was correct that sparks were seen from the underside of the plane, the spokesman said: "I gather that was one of the symptoms of an engine not working."

He stressed that the plane had not left the ground by the time the problem was spotted: "In terms of take-off speed, they were well short of the point of take-off. In the technical jargon, this is termed a minor incident."

The private charter plane was carrying only the Prime Minister and his officials, which include a group of Foreign Office Africa experts. Downing Street declined to name the airline responsible for the flight.