Goodbye. Now can someone get me a f***ing cup of tea?

It’s not on that our PM blew up at a young female RAAF officer and he did the right thing by apologising to her but you would think the RAAF treats its role of transporting our Prime Minister and Cabinet with a degree of seriousness.

The picture Laurie Oakes painted on these pages last Saturday was of a kind of airborne Fawlty Towers, where the defence equivalents of Basil and Manuel pace up and down the plane shrugging their shoulders or slapping each other as the entire Federal Cabinet goes without food. You’d think they could provide this most basic level of service.

In a heartening way, this funny affair shows the utter disregard Australians have for the highest office in the land, whereby the bloke who works 18 hours a day trying to run the joint is bagged as a pampered spiv for wanting a cup of tea.

While there’s consensus among commentators that Rudd has been damaged politically by the incident, the polls suggest otherwise - he’s up two points.

Imagine how popular he’d be if he actually hijacked the plane.