The Boeing 747-400, packed with 343 passengers, slid off the runway as it missed its turn after touching down. It crushed runway lights and engineers had to turn it around so it could taxi safely to the airport gate for passengers to disembark.

There was confusion as police and rescue vehicles rushed towards the plane, lights flashing, while it sat on an isolated part of the runway for 45 minutes. Most of the frightened passengers had no idea the Blairs were on board and the emergency rescue was ordered by the American Secret Service, which looks after the Prime Minister-whenever he is in the US. The Blairs, flying first-class, were the first to be evacuated at the airport terminal.

The family is staying with millionaire pop star Gibb, 57, at his £5million home in Miami Beach, it emerged today. The Bee Gee's co-manager John
Campbell said: "It's a private holiday and it's a private arrangement. They are friends." Gibb had joined Mr Blair at a Labour party rally in Yorkshire on the eve of the last general election. At the event Mr Blair said: "I was completely star-struck tonight. I met one of my heroes - Robin Gibb."

For previous New Years Mr Blair has holidayed in Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt, but it is understood he did not want to present the country with a terror target this year at a time of heightened tension in the Middle East.

British passenger Karen Queen said there was "alarm" on the plane at the end of the eight-hour flight: "There were lots of police. We actually thought there was somebody on board that shouldn't be on board."

Agent Kim Bruce of the US Secret Service said: "Last night Prime Minister Blair was on a British Airways flight that overshot the runway at Miami. There were no injuries."

Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the US Federal Aviation Administration, said: "The plane took out a couple of runway lights. The taxiway it missed was the last one at the end of the runway. It was on a safety area, a buffer zone at the end of the runway capable of handling the weight of the aircraft."

Ms Brown said it was not clear why the plane had overshot, adding that it had not been decided whether to carry out an investigation.

A BA spokesman said BA flight 209 had landed at Miami International Airport at 6.17pm local time. "They are doing resurfacing work on part of the runway and the captain came to a stop because he couldn't see the proper turnoff point to the taxiway."

The Prime Minister's first-class tickets would have cost him more than £7,500 each. The flight bill for all his party would be almost £40,000 - but to pay for a week at a beachfront property similar to Gibb's would have cost about the same.

Shadow transport secretary Chris Grayling said: "Another year, another celebrity holiday. Next thing we know he'll be in Beverly Hills next to the Beckhams. Why can't he pay for his holidays in the normal way like the rest of us?"

When Mr Blair has stayed at holiday homes of other stars, he has insisted he makes a payment to charity.

Downing Street insisted that the Blairs were paying for the Miami Beach holiday, but Mr Gibb's wife Dwina said the couple had neither asked for nor accepted money from the Blairs.

'It's just a friendly thing,' she said.

MPs demanded that the Prime Minister come clean about exactly what he is paying and whether taxpayers' money is being used to foot the bill.

Mr Blair was also facing claims of a conflict of interest because Mr Gibb has been lobbying the Government to change its policy towards pop musicians.

Like Sir Cliff Richard, whose Caribbean villa the Blairs used for their summer break, Mr Gibb has put pressure on Ministers to change the copyright laws to allow performing artists to cash in for longer on their hits.

Critics questioned whether the invitation was a reward for Mr Blair, who last year helped highlight the copyright campaign.

Mr Blair has described Mr Gibb, behind such hits as Saturday Night Fever and Tragedy, as one of his great musical heroes.

After Mr Gibb, a longstanding Labour supporter, introduced the Prime Minister at a Labour election rally in 2005, Mr Blair admitted: 'I was completely starstruck tonight. I met one of my heroes - Robin Gibb.'

The Prime Minister has been repeatedly criticised for accepting free trips to stay in the Tuscan haunts of Italian nobleman Prince Girolamo Strozzi and former Treasury minister Geoffrey Robinson, the Barbados mansions of Sir Cliff and JCB boss Sir Anthony Bamford, as well as homes in the South of France owned by high court judge Sir David Keene and French tobacco tycoon Alain-Dominique Perrin.

His latest holiday home has a colourful past, playing host to John F Kennedy with his mistress Marilyn Monroe. The Gibbs, who boast of enjoying an open marriage, are keeping up the tradition by hosting decadent parties.

Florida estate agents said that a member of the public would expect to pay between £25,000 and £40,000 a week for a property like the elegant Gibb mansion with its ten bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

Downing Street's attempt to claim the holiday was not yet another 'freebie' began to unravel almost as soon as it was issued.

A spokesman insisted that the Prime Minister paid for both his accommodation and the family's first class British Airways flights to Miami, which would have cost £23,000 at market rates.

The spokesman said: 'They paid for their flights and they paid for their accommodation in the normal way.'

Asked if, as he has done in the past, Mr Blair would make a donation to charity in lieu of costs, she said: 'No. It's a standard commercial agreement. I'm not confirming where he's staying. It was a normal private payment.'

Mr Blair would have to declare any hospitality in the Commons register of members' interests. By saying that he has paid for the holiday he could avoid public scrutiny.

But asked if the family had accepted money from the Blairs, Dwina Murphy- Gibb, Robin's wife of 21 years, told the Daily Mail: 'No, we are, they are, just friends. It's just a friendly thing.

'They have their own staff who come over, of course. They are just friends and we are heading out there to be with them. It's a friendly arrangement.'

Senior Government sources insisted the Blairs would make a donation but it would be up to the Gibb family to decide what to do with it.

Tory MP Philip Davies, who sits on the Commons Culture Committee, said: 'The public have a right to know how much Mr Blair paid. People can decide for themselves if he has paid the full rate. If he has, he should have nothing to hide.

'It's no wonder he doesn't want to give up as Prime Minister. He doesn't want to give up the perks of the job.

He's done so much to bring the office of the Prime Minister into disrepute, he couldn't blame anyone for thinking the worst of him or the worst of the motives of the people offering him a place to stay. He has brought it upon himself.'

Henry Bellingham, Tory MP for Norfolk North West, added: 'This is another example of the Prime Minister's obsession with very rich people, an obsession which has already lead to the cash for peerages scandal.

'This is yet another freebie holiday and I fear it cheapens the whole office. This is not something Prime Ministers should be doing.'

The spectacle of a Labour Prime Minister enjoying a £60,000 break while ordinary families are stretched to the limit at Christmas will also be repellent to many in the Labour Party.

The holiday has already had its drama. The jumbo jet carrying Mr Blair, his wife and their younger children Nicky, 20, Kathryn, 18, and six-year- old Leo, overshot its runway in Miami, hitting landing lights, when it landed on Boxing Day evening.

There were no injuries but the 343 passengers and crew had to wait 45 minutes while engineers tugged the plane back on to the taxiway.

Fellow passengers, who during the flight had been able to watch the recent film 'The Queen' in which Michael Sheen plays Mr Blair, were then forced to wait even longer while the Blairs left the plane first.

They were whisked to the Gibb mansion by U.S. secret service agents who will protect them during their holiday.

The Blairs are expected to stay for between a week and ten days. Friends of the Gibbs said Mr Blair is likely to have a 'jamming' session with Mr Gibb and his brother Barry, the other surviving Bee Gee, who lives in another mansion three doors away.

The Blairs and the Bee Gees are expected to see the New Year in together, with Robin Gibb leading a rousing Auld Lang Syne around a white grand piano in the so- called Miami Room as midnight chimes.

During his stay, Mr Blair is also likely to attend the funeral of former President Gerald Ford, who has died aged 93.

Mrs Murphy-Gibb explained last night that she is friendly with the Prime Minister's wife. 'I work at some charities, one charity in particular is Rights In Humanity which Cherie often talks at,' she said.

'She often hosts a number of events to do with the charity. Robin has also always had a friendship with Tony.'

More controversially, Mr Gibb has lobbied MPs and members of the European Union to increase the copyright protection for musicians. In Britain, copyright and royalty payments lapse after 50 years for singers and 70 years for composers, compared with 95 years in the U.S.

Mrs Murphy- Gibb said: 'Robin's friendship with Tony has nothing to do with politics - it is pure friendship. Tony's relationship with Cliff is just one of friendship too.

'You know, Tony has always been interested in music and is a great fan of Cliff and the Bee Gees too, and he's a great friend. That's just the way it is.

'They don't really discuss things like royalties - it's more family things they discuss. Our friendship with Tony and Cherie is beyond politics. Robin would not be interested in getting close to Tony to try to influence the royalties issue. Our friendship goes beyond all those kind of things.'

But Tory MP John Whittingdale, who co-hosted a meeting in Parliament at the end of October at which Mr Gibb lobbied for more help, said: 'I'm sure Robin Gibb might say after dinner: "What about this copyright business?"'

Mr Blair's absence means that John Prescott, who is recovering from kidney stones which hospitalised him on Christmas Day, is now running the country.

It has become something of a Blair family tradition to holiday in the properties of their rich and famous friends. They have paid several visits to Sir Cliff Richard's Barbados villa since 2003, and have been regular guests at a 16th-century Tuscan palace owned by Prince Girolamo Strozzi. In 2004, the Blairs stayed with Silvio Berlusconi, his Italian counterpart at the time, at Villa Certosa, his 73-room estate in Sardinia.

Their accommodation on this trip will be similarly opulent. From the moment the Blairs' limousine swept up the palm tree-lined driveway, past the courtyard fountain and through the giant double doors, tastefully decorated with Christmas wreaths, they would have entered a pop star's world.

Behind huge cast iron gates and protected by a swarm of security guards, the $11.4m (£5.8m) mansion in Miami Beach will afford plenty of privacy. With its own swimming pool and boat dock on to Biscayne Bay, the 10-bedroom, nine-bathroom home provides almost every facility the Blairs could want for their holiday as "snowbirds" - the name given by locals to visitors flocking to Florida for a warmer winter.

The three-storey house, built in 1948 and bought by Gibb in 1983 for just $950,000, sits on one of Miami's "millionaires rows". Two doors away, another of the Gibb brothers, Barry, has a $16m residence, complete with tennis court, while other neighbours include the singer Ricky Martin, the Hollywood star Matt Damon and, until recently, the actor Jennifer Lopez. Other British musicians with a passion for Miami include the Rolling Stones frontman, Mick Jagger, and Simply Red's Mick Hucknall.

Robin Gibb is said to be a long-term Labour supporter, even introducing Mr Blair at a 2005 general election rally in glamorous Huddersfield. The prime minister told supporters Mr Gibb was one of his heroes, adding: "This morning it was TB/GB [Gordon Brown]; this evening it's TB/Bee Gee."

David Whitaker, vice-president of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the Blairs were following a path to South Florida well-worn by politicians. "Richard Nixon started it by buying a winter home here, and the Clintons are regular visitors," he said.

"You can enjoy an anonymous, tranquil experience here. One of the reasons the movie stars and music figures come here is to get away from the spotlight."

But as with his previous holidays, Mr Blair's choice of holiday host will be closely scrutinised. The Gibb brothers have been leading voices of the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters' call to the government to tighten copyright protection for artists. According to the organisation's website, its duties involve: "Regularly talking to UK and EU politicians ... and campaigning to protect the value of copyright."

The Treasury has snubbed appeals to extend the copyright on sound recordings, despite the intervention of Sir Cliff and others, but the music industry has pledged to lobby the European commission for a change.

"Another year, another celebrity holiday and yet more questions about Tony Blair's judgement," said Chris Grayling, a Conservative frontbencher. "The trouble is that he doesn't seem to realise that when he does things like this it just causes more damage to the reputation of politicians as a whole."

Downing St declined to comment on Mr Blair's whereabouts for security reasons, but stressed he was not enjoying a freebie: "[His holiday] is a commercial arrangement," a spokesman said.

If the Blairs are paying market rates for their holiday, it has not come cheap. A similar nine-bedroom villa on Miami Beach with pool and a water frontage, close to the Gibb estate, is available at a monthly rental of $60,000.

Mr Blair is not the only Bee Gees admirer in the New Labour hierarchy. Alastair Campbell, the former No 10 director of communications, claims to listen to their Live in Las Vegas album while running, and the education secretary, Alan Johnson, covered their songs as a young musician.

But whether Mr Blair will have a chance to jam with his idol during his Christmas break is not clear. "It's a private holiday and it's a private arrangement," said John Campbell, Robin Gibb's manager.

The getaways

Where: Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson's 10-acre Tuscan estate near San Gimignano, boasting a 45ft swimming pool and tennis court

When: 1997

Highlights : The breakfast croissants - observers accused Mr Blair of piling on pounds due to lavish meals. The prime minister insisted he had lost weight by swimming, tennis and climbing a hill. The paymaster general's resignation over the Peter Mandelson home loan affair put an end to such breaks

Where: Villa del Gombo, Pisa, loaned by Tuscan president Vannino Chiti

When: 1999

Highlights: It emerged that the Tuscan government had spent £500,000 refurbishing the villa for the Blairs' visit. Italian media dubbed Mr Blair Lo Scroccone (the scrounger) after it emerged that he had donated just £3,000 to charity in lieu of rent

Where: Prince Girolamo Strozzi's 16th century Tuscan palace in the hills of Chianti, the 50-room Villa Cusona

When: 1998, 2000, 2006

Highlights: The professor and his wife moved into the stables to give the Blairs more room. Prosciutto and wine from the estate's pigs and vineyard

Where: A 15th century chateau in Lot, southwest France, which belongs to tycoon Alain Dominique Perrin

When: 2002

Highlights: Escaping rainsoaked Cumbria. The Blairs tried to prove their patriotic credentials with a break in foot-and-mouth hit rural Britain before leaving for the more luxurious surroundings of Mr Perrin's home

Where: Silvio Berlusconi's 73-room Sardinian estate, Villa Certosa

When: 2004

Highlights: The low-key visit concluded with a concert and fireworks display, which ended with the words "Viva Tony" across the sky

Where: Cliff Richard's £3m colonial-style mansion in Barbados

When: 2003, 2005, 2006

Highlights: No 10's media blackout for security reasons, blown by Mr Blair when he attended a VJ day service. The prime minister's ukelele recital.