Brown sends in the Navy!

Monday 19 April 10

This morning Gordon Brown and several members of his cabinet and election team broke from their campaigning duties to take part in a special emergency meeting of the COBRA committee. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how to help UK citizens stranded abroad by the on-going flight restrictions caused by the Icelandic volcano.

After the meeting Gordon Brown announced that three Royal Navy ships will be drafted into the efforts to return stranded travellers to the UK.

Downing Street said the prime minister and his Spanish counterpart had agreed by phone that the UK and Spain would work together to look at how the capacity in Spain, which is open to flights, could be used to help get British people stranded in areas such as America and Asia back to the UK.

The move comes as schools are drawing up contingency plans to deal with the absence of teachers stranded by the crisis. A handful of schools have remained closed.

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