Find your own bit of winter sun

To Puss In Boots, Dick Whittington and other hardy Christmas panto perennials may soon be added another potentially enduring knockabout, The Blairs Go on Holiday.

Unwilling to spend his last festive season as Prime Minister pacing the echoing corridors of Downing Street, Tony Blair once again indulged his weakness for sunshine holidays among the rich and famous by flying the family to Miami Beach.

It is the sort of Florida resort where politics doesn’t really count, but where sunbathing, power shopping and being seen wearing shades on Ocean Drive does. Thanks to a combination of circumstances, the Blairs never stood a chance of disappearing off the radar for a few days’ rest.

First, and the one for which they cannot be blamed, was the way that their scheduled British Airways 747 jet, carrying 340 other passengers, landed at Miami. Within seconds of touchdown it was surrounded by a conspicuous posse of emergency vehicles and an equally large contingent of television reporters chattering excitedly about a stricken jet.

The aircraft had overshot the runway, missed its taxiway, rolled into a safety buffer zone and broke some landing lights. No one was hurt, but passengers disembarked nearly an hour late. BA blamed poor lighting due to repair work, and said that the captain had erred on the side of caution.

The incident will be an embarrassment to the airline, whose chairman, Martin Broughton, was accused by Mr Blair last month of picking a battle not worth fighting after trying to ban an employee from wearing a cross.

From the airport the Blairs were whisked away by the US Secret Service, pursued by the television crews.

Then there is the problem of the holiday home itself. Mr Blair appears to have an affinity with pop stars of a certain age and generation, especially those with holiday homes for loan or hire.

Having spent a summer holiday at Sir Cliff Richard’s villa in Barbados, the Blairs are now comfortably ensconced in a £4.9 million, ten-bedroomed, nine-bathroomed mansion, reminiscent of Tara in Gone with the Wind, that belongs to Robin Gibb, of the Bee Gees.

Mr Blair’s absence means that John Prescott took charge of day-to-day government business just 48 hours after being taken to hospital with a kidney stone. Downing Street said that Mr Prescott was fine and the Prime Minister remained in regular touch.

A spokesman described the Blairs’ stay last night as “a shortish break and family holiday” but refused to comment further beyond saying that this time the Blairs were paying their own way. “It is a commercial arrangement he has come to with the owner of the accommodation. He is paying for his accommodation,” the spokesman said. Last night, however, Mr Gibb’s wife, Dwina, cast doubt on this statement, saying that she and her husband had neither asked for, nor accepted, any money. “It’s just a friendly thing,” she said.

Sir Cliff had lent them his villa free of charge, although the Blairs made a charity donation in lieu of rent.

John Campbell, the comanager of Gibb, confirmed that it was a private arrangement. “They are friends,” Mr Campbell said.

Gibb is said to be a long-standing Labour supporter, but there is no record of him giving money to the party. He did, however, share a platform with Mr Blair during election campaigning in the marginal seat of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, where the Prime Minister told the audience: “I was completely star-struck tonight. I met one of my heroes — Robin Gibb.”

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