Sunday morning and I’m at Edinburgh Airport
waiting for a flight to London Heathrow. I have business meetings early Monday
morning so decided to spend my Sunday doing a bit of shopping and catching up
with some old friends. The BMI flight is over an hour late from London so we
are delayed. My Star Alliance Gold status gets me access to their lounge and I
am enjoying Scottish short bread with Starbucks quality coffee for breakfast.
Finally they call boarding and as I make my way to the gate I am met by a flood
of Scottish NFL fans wearing jerseys from all around the League. Philadelphia
Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants, New Orleans Saints, Arizona
Cardinals, and of course Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots.
You see, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the rest
of the New England Patriots are in London this weekend to play the Tampa Bay
Bucs in week 6 of the NFL regular season. The annual NFL game at Wembley Stadium
is the highlight of the British American Football calendar, with Wembley
selling out to a capacity crowd of 85,000. London has made a bid to host a
Super Bowl in the next 10 years and the NFL are taking a serious look at the
proposal. Most Americans may cringe at the thought of their national event
going to London, but it makes a lot of sense from a marketing and revenue
perspective. In fact, there is even a proposal to expand the league with a full
team in London. No doubt the logistics of having one or even two teams in
different time zones is a nightmare. Think about the physical toll it would
take on teams having to travel to the UK to play, and what about the London
team itself having to travel to places like San Francisco, Seattle or San Diego
to play a regular season or playoff game? Still, expanding its market to
include the UK population would be greeted with approval (and cash) from the
likes of Pepsi, Reebok and Gatorade.
And so as I watch these die hard American
Football fans standing in line at a remote airport in the North of the UK, with
their jerseys and baseball caps, spending their hard earned money to fly down
to London and no doubt take Monday off work (productivity hit?), I think I have
seen it all…until I board the plane. As I made my way through the first class
cabin I come face to face with Prime Minister Gordon Brown as he takes his seat
in the first row. Dressed in suit and tie, Gordon looks very tired as he
settles into his seat and immediately goes head down to read through a 3-inch
stack of paper. He looks like a management consultant, over worked, ruffled
hair, and aging by the minute. I was a bit taken aback to be honest, by his
shriveled look. He was also unshaven which was very unusual for a Prime
Minister, but then it is Sunday morning and Gordon was no doubt up in Edinburgh
for an engagement with family and friends the night before given the British
Prime Minister is in fact Scottish. We can forgive him his appearance this fine
fall morning, he is after all human like the rest of us, and deserves a weekend
‘off’ with his family who likely don’t get to have a Saturday night with him
all that often.
After my surprise of bumping into ‘the man’ (at
least in these parts), my business mind took over and I quickly started to
assess the Prime Minister’s entourage. He sat in seat 1A and his security man
sat next to him in seat 1C, wearing a suit and tie, looking fresh and rested,
with an ear piece and armed no doubt although you couldn’t see anything. Behind
him were two more men in suit and tie, but their facial expression and body
language suggested they are aides to the Prime Minister, not security. As I
waited for the NFL fans to stow away their bags and take their seats (this lot
don’t travel much I deduct), I turned my attention back to Gordon and there he
was, head down, scribbling ferociously on his stack of papers like a teacher
correcting term papers. And then it hit me! I looked up in the overhead
compartment and saw two briefcases staring back at me. Could it be? Was I
looking at the British Prime Minister’s equivalent to what we Americans call
‘The Nuclear Football’? Way cool…
As I took my seat (9D, exit row in economy, best
seats in the house), I couldn’t help to marvel at British society. The Prime
Minister is on a commercial flight and everyone around me is so relaxed that I
realize the only guy who is excited is me. I talk to my neighbor in 9F and
turns out he is a St. Louis Ram’s fan (really??) who masquerades as a banker
during the week. My new friend tells me the Prime Minister is often on this
flight to and from London and always travels commercial. What? He never takes
his own plane? Turns out he doesn’t have one. The Royal Air Force only give him
a plane for big international flights when he has a huge entourage, otherwise
he takes whatever commercial flight is available. “Tax payers won’t pay for
private jets,” my neighbor tells me. “They are in government to work for us,
not the other way round,” before turning the conversation back to more
important things, such as will the Rams fire QB Marc Bulger any time soon?
Now can you imagine politicians and leaders in
the United States flying commercial? Would the President take a commercial
flight from his hometown of Chicago back to DC? Better yet, can you see the
Speaker of the House fly commercial from San Francisco each week? What about Senator
John McCain? And if they did, how would people react? Would they be as civil as
the British are by politely leaving them alone? My flight was full but not a
single person interrupted Gordon as they boarded the plane. That would never happen
in the US.
You see, politicians in America have become
celebrities. Somewhere along the line the tables have turned on we, the people.
It used to be it was an honor to serve us by running for office. You went to
Washington to get things done for your constituents. And you had to be
qualified to represent the people who were sending you, so that meant you
actually had to have accomplished something in your life in order for people to
have confidence in your ability to serve. The British are fighting hard to keep
that tradition. Career politicians are being targeted by the Press to prevent
them from winning elections, or in cases where they snuck into office, from
being re-elected. If you have paid any attention to the British news the past
several weeks, auditors have been reviewing politician’s expense reports and making
them payback illegitimate expenses. Gordon had to payback over £12,000
($19,500). People are just not putting up with politicians who don’t know their
place. They don’t care who you are.
And so as we prepare to land at London’s Heathrow
Airport and I sign off, it is the nomad in me that is satisfied today. For
without venturing out in the world you can’t be at places like this…places
where Prime Ministers, foreign NFL fans and a nomad come together for a short
plane ride.
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