£900.000 may well be 'peanuts' but as it is, apparently, ten times the normal cost of repainting a plane one questions what make it so expensive...
I thought you would have been all for keeping people off of the dole
Oh, I see. It's an altruistic job creation scheme 
The weird thing is that airforce colours have been fine for PMs and the Queen for years and years. But, of course, in those days we depended on our solid reputation for good sense and pragmatism to make our way in the world. We didn't actually need to worry about the drabness of our plane compared with those of other nations parked at the airport. We had something much more substantial to base our world standing on.