Westminster View - October 2017

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October began as September ended and light years ago there was a (Tory) Party Conference. A dinner in Brussels and the Druncker entourage goes for another subversive leak. Monarch Airlines crashed financially. No universal welcome for Universal Credit.  Uncivil war in Spain, elections in Germany and Austria and the Czech Republic, with the far Right on the rampage. The Boundary Commission reports but will its findings ever see the parliamentary light of day? Storms Ophelia and Brian batter Britain while the wind of sex-pest control blows through the Westminster village. And The Tramp moves a step closer to impeachment. 

 

The Conservative Party Conference was never going to be easy With less-than-loyal `Leadership contenders` who ought to know better `on manoeuvres`, with a less-than -successful General Election still raw in the memory of activists and with the divisions of Brexit tearing her party apart The Prime Minister needed some luck on her side but even that, during her keynote oration, was denied her. With a throat infection and with the stage set collapsing behind her the Darling Bud might have been forgiven for believing that the fates were conspiring against her.  Sympathy is not something that Party Leaders look for in an audience but, as she struggled manfully through her brief on her sixty-first birthday, that was probably the most prevailing sentiment on offer throughout much of her speech. Nevertheless, the Lady is not a quitter. She earned her standing ovation the hard way Theresa May has an extraordinary resilience and notwithstanding other distractions inflicted upon her administration by Ministers and possibly by Cabinet Ministers who would seem to have too much time (and may soon find themselves with still more time still) on their hands she has ended the month in good form. As one of my colleagues put it in the tearoom “she has got her mojo back”.  Given the enormity of the task that still faces the United Kingdom as we dig further into the Brexit negotiations that is probably not a moment too soon. Students emerged from the conference in Manchester having learned nine hundred thousand of them would be three hundred and sixty pounds a year better off as a result of a fees pledge and the reinstatement of student grants alongside loans and another few billion is going towards helping first time buyers. This conference has also been seen as `Boris`s Last Stand` Notwithstanding a Churchillian “Let The Lion Roar” pitch to the party faithful the ex-Mayor`s hopes of one day becoming Prime Minister have receded over the horizon. As the Old Knuckleduster, David Davis, rumoured to be going to retire in 2019 after Brexit, said as an aside “we train the best diplomats and then we put them to the test by sending them to work for the Foreign Secretary”. Johnson says of Chancellor Hammond that `Nobody is unsackable” but that is a two-edged sword; Foreign Secretaries are not unassailable either.   The star in the ascendant and darling of the Conference was Ruth Davidson, Leader of the Tories in Scotland and the woman who delivered enough seats north of The Border to keep Comrade Corbyn out of Downing Street. Her message to the Conference hall: “Burst  Corbyn`s bubble and stop bickering”. The Conservative crown will be handed on one day, of course, but the new wearer is likely to be drawn from the 2010, 2015 or even the 2017 intakes of Members rather than from any of the `usual suspects`. 

 

Britain will, it is said, `ignore some EU rules and regulations ` during a two-year period of `divergence` between 2019 and 2021. During that period there will, though, be no new trade deals with non-EU countries which begs a number of questions about the future of the UK economy post-`transition`. Speaking in the United States the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Sir Alan “Hunky Dunky” Duncan, may have described the referendum result as “a blue-collar tantrum” but Brexit will happen That said, the “Brexit Bill” that is the paving instrument that will, in domestic legislation, facilitate the post-exit transition from European to United Kingdom law, has stalled.  Tory rebels and some Labour Remainers have tabled about four hundred amendments and are seeking to introduce over fifty- New Clauses to the measure that is due to be debated, largely, in its Committee stages on the floor of the House of Commons. With a wafer-thin majority propped up by Northern Ireland`s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Government whips are wrestling with ways to bring the rebels into line and to neutralise wrecking changes that would potentially render the legislation ineffective. The main sticking point is over what are known as the “Henry V111” clauses that give Ministers the right to introduce changes to the law without further primary legislation.

 

Beyond Westminster opinions remain very divided over the potential effects of leaving the European Union, the Customs Union and the Free Trade area. In the City there are dire warnings that a transfer of financial business to Germany or France could generate a crisis in the Global economy. London is and is expected to remain one of the premier financial centres of the world and if that boat is rocked then the World will feel rather more than ripples. There are grave concerns, also over the future of our car industries. With decisions about future models in the pipeline the car business needs certainty of supply and if that cannot be guaranteed then the next generation of motor vehicles will not be made in Britain.  British car manufacturers rely upon a `just-in-time flow of parts, many from mainland Europe, that is down to a staggering twenty minutes/.  Disrupt that supply through prolonged customs checks and border controls and the industry will founder.  Additionally, Europe remains one of our major markets for the sale of motor vehicles. In order to qualify as British under World Trade terms a car has to be forty-five per cent made exclusively in the UK and most of our motor-trade product does not meet that requirement.   In terms of employment, particularly in a North East of England that voted to leave the EU, that could prove devastating unless trade and customs agreements, not just with the rest of the world but with the twenty-seven remaining states of the European Union, are swiftly reached.  “Deadlock” in Brussels does not bode well for the future of our respective economies but while M. Tusk describes such talk as “exaggerated” and believes that a “fair deal” can be reached but then adds that “The EU will not be defeated on Brexit” and M. Macron, in France continues to demand an excessive `divorce settlement`, unsupported by any itemised account, before trade talks can commence. Not without reason does Chancellor Hammond tell Sky News that “the opponents are on the other side of the table”. Whether he was referring to the EU or to someone else when talking about “the enemy” is another matter. The enemy within, perhaps?  Or `Red Jerry` Corbin who made a fleeting wrecking visit to M. Barnier in Brussels to effectively undermine Britain`s negotiating position with a promise join forces with die-hard Tory Remainers to defeat a `no deal` exit.? 

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In an endeavour to “accelerate Brexit negotiations ahead of the European Council summit” the Prime Minister went off to Brussels for another dinner with J-C Druncker. One has to hope that the food was good for I doubt that she will have enjoyed the company.  The former Leader of Luxembourg County Council seems not to understand Chatham House rules or any form of confidentiality: within minutes of the culinary experience ending his team appear to have been briefing the German press that Mrs. May was “begging” for help in reaching a solution to her political woes back home making it still more likely that Britain really will walk away without any deal at all. That is a very serious possibility that those currently grandstanding for Europe would do well to recognise.

 

I personally have spent some months, in my capacity as the Senior Vice President, acting as the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe following the suspension and possible impeachment of Mr. Pedro Agramunt.  In the event the Spanish Senator finally did the decent thing and resigned four days before the vote on the matter and until the election of a new President I took over the President`s office. It was in that context that I became involved, peripherally, in the Referendum or “consultation” as we were obliged to call it, in Catalonia. Whatever the legality of the plebiscite, and it was to say the least highly suspect under the terms of a Spanish constitution agreed in an earlier referendum by the Catalonians, there can be no doubt in the mind of anyone who watched the television coverage of the police brutality shown towards those trying, peacefully, to vote that the Spanish Government made a pig`s ear of their response and lost the “hearts and minds” operation from day one. That the Monarch, King Felipe, chose to become involved personally was also quite extraordinary. Can you envisage Our Own Dear Queen engaging, however strongly she may feel, in the issue of Scottish Nationalism and separatism in the United Kingdom? I think not.  

 

It is not the right or the duty of the forty seven Member States of the Council of Europe to become embroiled in the internal domestic affairs of one member. It is, though, the duty of the CoE as the pan-European body embodying human rights, to condemn violence that left more than seven hundred citizens injured and I issued a press release to that effect.  The European Union, by contrast, has been characteristically supine over the aspirations of the Catalan people to achieve self-rule on the one hand and the right of Spain to uphold its constitution on the other, confining itself to the need to “uphold the rule of law”. That law, it seems, includes the use of rubber bullets by the Spanish police that the EU refused to condemn and some weasel words about “basic rights”.   Following the result of the “not-the-referendum” that was “annulled” by Spain, although how you can annul something that you have already said does not exist I am not quite sure, The Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the President of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont, engaged in a few days of shadow boxing while the Spanish Government threatened direct rule and the Catalonian parliament threatened to declare unilateral independence. This was accompanied by pro and anti-independence rallies in Barcelona and anti-independence rallies in Madrid and dark mutterings of the start of a civil war. The `fake news` disease has clearly reached Espagne.  The Spanish Foreign Minister, Alfonso Dastis, appearing on British television, asserted that the police violence that we had all seen on our own screens was faked.  If indeed early elections are to be held in Catalonia in 2018 as Senor Rajoy has announced then more violence cannot be ruled out even if, as is proposed at present, the separatists boycott the polls. Into this fray finally emerges J-C Druncker to warn of a “Threat to unity” and “Cracks appearing in the European Union”. That Union is, of course, terrified that following Brexit sparks of independence and sovereignty might ignite wildfires elsewhere. The prospect of ninety-five separate European states is the stuff of nightmares for those whose dream is of ever-closer bonds and a United States of Europe. “The force of argument and not the argument of force” is the strapline of the day but while Carles Puidgemont, whose name our newscasters have by now learned to pronounce, eschews Madrid`s proposed elections and declares independence Senor Rajoy imposes direct rule, members of the Catalonian Government face arrest and a possible thirty years in gaol for civil disobedience and Puidgemont ends the month in exile in Belgium. 

 

In remarkably short order the name Harvey Weinstein has become synonymous with the casting couch and show-business sleaze.  The fifty-four member Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (The Oscars) has expelled the producer from membership and more actresses queue up to make allegations of sexual harassment and worse. It is understood that in Britain London`s Met Police are looking at the possibility of feeling the serial lecher`s collar.  You would think, on recent arrival from the planet Zog, that the Westminster Village was full of Weinstein feelalikes.  

 

The balls were set rolling by one newly elected Jared O`Mara, the Honourable Member (I use the term loosely) for Sheffield Hallam. This was the seat previously occupied by the 2010 Coalition`s Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party St. Nicholas of Clogg and the potty-mouthed Mr. O`Hara has not endeared himself either to his fellow MPs or to an electorate used to the mild-mannered and refined St. Nicholas. In the wake of offensive outbursts Mr. O`Mara resigned from his absurd position as a member of the Equalities Select Committee and following an unfortunate tirade during which he described a lady as “an ugly bitch” was suspended from the membership of Mr. Corbyn`s Socialist Workers` Momentum Party.  The focus then switched, either by accident or by design, to a Tory Trade Minister who, in a former back-bench incarnation, had despatched his secretary to buy goods from a sex-shop.  Rumour has it that the aforesaid employee was the subject of an employment Tribunal which found against her and that a certain amount of residual animosity prevailed. It is also alleged that the woman in question was `in a relationship` with a well-known journalist whose views are less than sympathetic to the Conservative Party. No matter. Sending your staff out to buy a vibrator “for my wife” is a pretty dumb thing to do. 

 

Not to be outdone a female Times reporter – and it is astonishing how many of these wronged women are, or have an association with, hacks – recalled that `fourteen years ago` a drunken Tory MP had made a pass at her after a well-lubricated lunch. As the Editor of Conservative Woman, Kathy Gyngell, has pointed out “Why would a grown-up woman let it happen”. It is, another female commentator observes, “a form of modern-day hen pecking”. 

 

Then Damian Green, Deputy Prime Minister in all but name, is accused by a longstanding family friend who just happens to `write occasionally for the Guardian` of sexual harassment and of `sending suggestive texts`.  The text in question followed the publication of a photograph of the aforesaid bruised, demure and traumatised young woman in a corset and said, in clearly jocular terms “Long time no see – loved the picture! – time we had a drink and caught up”.   Long before he was anywhere near the Ministry of Defence the Secretary of State, then Michael Fallon, put his hand on Reporter Julia Hartley-Brewer`s knee.  Ms. Hartley Brewer said – and as this is a family column I paraphrase – “get your hand off or I will smack you in the mouth” or words to that effect. End of tryst.  And, Shock! Horror! Amber Rudd, the lady Home Secretary who is single is said to have been `in a relationship` with Kwasi Kwarteng, a Back-Bench MP who is also single. Now unless you subscribe to the military view that Officers must not enter into liaisons with Other Ranks I cannot for the life of me see that Amber and Kwasi have done anything that, outside the confines of the Bourgeois Women`s Tabloid, would be worthy of comment.  There is in circulation on social media, authorship at present unknown, a list of those “guilty” of sex-pest `crimes`. That document is largely unsubstantiated and trivial but it is treated as gospel by ill-wishers and some sections of the press and we are, as a result, all tarred to some extent by this unpleasant brush. 

 

Sexual Harassment, molestation and, particularly, rape are vile crimes but I do not believe that my colleagues on the Conservative benches are remotely moving in Weinstein territory or are guilty of anything much more than frivolity and harmless flirtation. God knows, finding good, bright, talented young men and women to carry the torch that we shall hand on is hard enough already and life as an MP is sufficiently challenging and demanding without the Witch-finders moving in to take control of the asylum. 

 

On the other side of the Atlantic the Trials of the Tramp continue. Notwithstanding the massacre of fifty-nine people in Las Vegas the Commander in Chief is clearly in thrall to the National Rifle Association and declines to introduce controls over the right of any American to hold – and apparently use – a gun. That the murderer, who targeted his victims from a thirty-second floor hotel balcony overlooking a pleasure park, had a veritable arsenal of weapons at his disposal it seems that the pro-gun lobby retains its grip over the legislature. We can take comfort, though, from Rex Tillerson`s reassurance that “The President is not seeking war with North Korea” even though ex-Mayor Boris, the illustrious Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, has opined that The Tramp “has a duty” to prepare for just such an event. The ex-Mayor`s own Government Department, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has found it expedient to set up an early-warning system to alert them to the erratic middle-of-the-night `tweets` still emanating from the White House.  Jeff Flake, a Republican Senator in The Tramp`s own back yard is the second such denizen of America`s Upper House to quit accusing the President, in a valedictory speech, of “constant non-truth telling “(or “lying” as we would say in English) and “outrageous and undignified behaviour”. So undignified that one of America`s Porn Barons, Larry Flynt, has put up a bounty of $10 million to secure the impeachment of The Tramp, advertising that fact in a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post. The delusional Tramp apparently likes to think of himself as a “victim” of a Clinton-inspired campaign to secure the “Russian dossier”. In an endeavour to display his liberal side he agrees to the publication of the hitherto suppressed files relating to the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. He then has to cave in to the wishes of the CIA citing potential “irreversible harm to security” and saying “I had no choice”. The resulting redacted documents, when released, generate much more of the speculation that publication was intended to put to rest. 

 

The net, though, is closing around the President of the United States. The Robert Mueller probe into the “Russian links “with the White House have led to the inquiry`s first arrest with The Tramp`s former Presidential campaign manager Paul Manna fort, facing charges of conspiracy to defraud. There are those who say that once the canaries start to sing to protect their own skins The Tramp`s days are surely numbered. 

 

In other news the Universal Credit scheme promoted by the Department for Work and Pensions and designed to roll up six benefits into one has hit fierce criticism from a Labour Party and activists who “support the principle” while seeking to derail the introduction of the policy.  It was, certainly, ridiculous for the Department to charge callers seeking assistance the inflated costs of a premium-rate helpline and the Secretary of State, David Gaulke, swiftly dealt with this issue. That, of course, was presented by the Salford Broadcasting Corporation as “a Government retreat”.  There are flaws in the introduction of the policy, certainly. It is widely recognised that it cannot be right to make claimants with no resources wait for six weeks before receiving and payments under the new scheme but there are systems in place to advance funds immediately in cases of hardship – a fact conveniently ignored by Labour and some Tory critics – and it ought to be the right of any administration to adjust and modify any new policy in the light of experience and unintended consequences. Such fine-tuning is inevitably described by the media as `a U-turn` but rational people might be generous enough to regard it as common sense. It is estimated that by the time that Universal Credit is fully rolled out some 250,000 more people who at present find it financially not viable to take a job will be able to enjoy the dignity and benefits of employment and that, surely, has to be worth the candle. 

 

Monarch airlines, regarded as one of the best of the lower-cost carriers, is in the hands of the Receiver. Those many of us who have flown with this company can only mourn the fact that the level of service that they have sought to provide has come at a cost that has rendered them unviable in a world where cheap if not cheerful is the order of the day. The Civil Aviation Authority, which is responsible for the licensing of such companies, afforded them a twenty-four hour extension to try to put together a rescue package but in the end it was one hundred and eleven thousand stranded passengers that had to be rescued while others found themselves at home and without the holiday flights that they had expected to enjoy. 

 

In elections in Austria Sebastian Kunz of the People`s Party (ONP) has become, at thirty-one, the world`s youngest leader. The Right Wing Austrian Freedom Party, the FPO, came second in the country`s polls and has therefore been invited to talks and is set to become the junior partner in a coalition Government. The Freedom Party espouses the nationalist rhetoric and policies of Hungary`s Viktor Orban,   In Germany a weakened Chancellor Merkel is struggling, in the light of the advance of Altenatif fur Deutschland, to form a CDU coalition with the FDP and the Greens. This unlikely consensus is expected to take until the New Year to put together.  In the Czech Republic elections Andrej Babis` Centrist/Populist ANO has emerged as the largest single party with 30% of the vote and 78 out of 200 seats. And in the neo-Soviet Republic Kzenia Sobchak, known as `Russia`s Paris Hilton` is said to be going to `challenge` Comrade Putin for the Presidency in a move widely despised as a `token opposition` candidacy to prove that Vlad can still `win` elections. 

 

The Boundary Commission has published its recommendations for new boundaries for parliamentary constituencies to reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600. This, were it to be implemented, would mean some Members losing out entirely and would benefit the Conservative Party that has, historically, suffered as a result of safe Labour ‘Rotten Boroughs` to the tune of some thirty seats Will the turkeys vote for Christmas? As the Democratic Unionist Party, currently supporting the Conservative administration, would be amongst the losers, possibly not and the odds are that the present unrepresentative boundaries will remain in force. 

 

And Wing Commander Andy Green seeks to break the world land speed record of 736 miles per hour set at the Hakseen Bed in 1997. On the first trial run at Newquay Airport five tons of rocket-propelled Bloodhound covered 1.7 miles in eight seconds at 135 thousand horsepower.  Andy Green follows in famous footsteps. Malcolm Campbell set the first record in a Sunbeam in 1925 at 150.87 mph. And his Bluebird reached 174.88 mph in 1927. At Daytona the following year the record was again pushed up, in Bluebird, to 206.95 mph. The last real motor and distinct from rocket propelled car to break the record again was driven across the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1947 by John Cobb at a speed of 394.19 mph. Andy Green hopes to travel at twice that speed in Bloodhound.

 

Ballswatch 

 

The new `Leader` of UKIP, one Henry Bolton from Kent, tells Russia Today TV that “I could kill a badger with my bare hands”. What next? Arm-wrestling with Vlad the Impaler? 

 

“Boy George” Osborne, sometime Chancellor of the Exchequer and now `editor` of the London Evening Standard has absolved his predecessor as Chancellor and latter day Labour Prime Minister Gordon “The Clunking Fist Brown of responsibility for the 2008 financial crisis. His endeavours to re-write history might have been more convincing had he not spent most of his years in Opposition and subsequently in power rightly blaming Brown for all of the nation`s economic woes. 

 

Man David extinguished Margaret Thatcher`s flam as the Tory Party emblem and replaced it in his own green image with a stylised oak tree less than affectionately known in party circles as ` the broccoli`. Now Robert Halfon, Essex MP and briefly a Minister, wants to chop down the oak and replace it with a ladder as `the symbol of opportunity`. To make it more fun he might want to add some snakes as well. 

 

On October 21st the World Health Organisation appointed Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe`s ageing Dictator, as a Health Ambassador. Faced with an international outcry and the realisation that Mugabe had presided over the decimation of healthcare and just about everything else in his own Country the WHO cancelled his ambassadorial role on October 23rd. Even Mugabe will have found it hard to do much damage in 24 hours. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe who has Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police presided over Operation Midland, the failed “VIP Child Abuse” inquiry has been rewarded with a Peerage. More pleasing is the elevation of the former Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard Charteris, to the House of Lords. 

 

It has emerged that the real reason for the silencing of the `bongs` of Big Ben   is the overtime cost of re-setting the clock morning and afternoon to allow silence and ear-protection for those restoring the clock tower during the working day.  Big Ben (the bell) will chime on Armistice Day, Remembrance Sunday and from December 23rd 2017 through New Year`s Eve to January 3rd 2018. But don`t set your watches by the chimes because due to the interruptions the sensitive clock mechanism may be slightly out-of-time! 

Critics of reductions in police numbers will be infuriated to know that there are currently more frontlines constables per head of population than in the 1960s, widely regarded as the golden age of ¬the Bobby on the Beat`. The threat, of course, has changed dramatically since the days when police officers had no requirement or need to carry guns. 

 

An enlightened Italian Judge has decreed that people must be permitted time off work to `look after a sick pet`. Animals are “friends of the family” finds the Legal Eagle. 

 

Thomas the Tank Engine, created by the Rev. Wilbert Audrey in 1945is being subjected to “ground breaking refreshment” by rights-holders Mattel. To satisfy UN sustainable development goals the Fat Controller will be made `more endearing`. 

 

The European Commission has imposed fresh restrictions upon imported Basmati rice, sixty per cent of which originates from India. It will take three years to modify the pastures to suit the Commissions demands so watch out for a rise in curry prices as the resulting shortages impact upon supply. 

 

Is pole dancing on track to become recognised as an Olympic Sport? The Global Association of International Sports Federations has granted the International Pole dancing Federation `observer status` Who will be doing the observing is not entirely clear but the way is now open for the IPSF to apply for membership of the International Olympic Committee. High heels are, however, not permitted.

 

Lulu, a CIA bomb dog has been dropped from bomb-sniffing duties. She has developed `a disinterest in explosives`. 

 

And the BBC has offered a public apology following a failure to challenge Lord (Nigel) Lawson one of Britain`s leading climate-change deniers, during a radio interview.  This, says Auntie, was a “breach of editorial guidelines”. Not the sort of “breach” normally inflicted upon interviewees on a daily basis by broadcasters more interested in the sound of their own interruptions than anything the contributor might have to say. 

 

Valete 

 

Christine Butler was, briefly, the Member of Parliament for Castle Point in Essex. She took the seat from Dr. Robert Spink, a Tory, in the Labour landslide of 1997on a swing of 17%. Dr. Spink subsequently joined UKIP but to no avail. The constituency once represented by the Polish émigré and Tory grandee Sir Bernard Braine now has Conservative Rebecca Harris to guard its` interests. 

 

Tom `American Girl` Petty, he of the Heartbreakers, will be remembered fondly by the fans who, over four decades, have bought eighty million of his records. 

 

RIP “Crimewatch”, the BBC programme presented by Nick Ross and the late Jill Dando, after thirty-three years on air and, although there are reportedly still 500 million of them lying around somewhere its farewell, also to the old `round pound` coin that has been replaced this month by a shiny new 12-sided hard-to-counterfeit quid that looks like and is probably now worth about as much as an old-fashioned threepenny bit. And do the new coins fit parking meters? No, of course they don`t! 

 

That fine actor Roy Dotrice served in 106 Squadron during the second world war, a scholarship with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and spent was shot down and incarcerated in Stalag Luft V1 and was liberated in 1945. He turned down a scholarship with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and spent ten years in Northern repertory theatres instead before, in 1957, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company. Best known for his one-man show “Brief Lives” he was 94 when the final curtain fell. 

 

And Rosemary Leach, who starred with Patrick Wymark in “The Power Game” series, “My Family” and “Jewel in the Crown” has departed at eighty-one. 

 

Brian `Stack` Stevens, a Cornish farmer, was capped for England as a prop forward twenty five times. Kicked into touch at seventy-seven. 

 

Fats “Blueberry Hill” Domino, Jazz, Latin, Creole, Blues and Boogie musician had, in his eighty-nine years, more hit records than anyone except Elvis Presley. “Ain`t That a Shame”. 

 

And finally……….. 

 

Captains Jeremy and Nick Hart, both airline pilots, celebrated their 60th birthdays by retiring. Their last flights landed, from Gothenburg and from Geneva respectively, landed at London`s Heathrow airport sixty seconds apart. Between them they have clocked up forty-five thousand commercial flying hours and safely delivered some two million passengers to their destinations.

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