After an exciting but fretful day yesterday, I enjoyed the evening’s NewsNight programme on BBC2. They ran an article on the proposed Estuary Airport, ‘Boris Island’ (sorry ‘Boris Peninsula’ has he now prefers it known) which bought out an amusing sneer from Paxman – “surely a bunch of birds aren’t going to stop this?” I expected a standard 50/50 debate from the two panellists - a Lib Dem councillor, I forget who, and a Venture Capitalist, one John Moulton I think. But no, the verdict was unanimous – as far as they were concerned, it’s not happening.
The Liberal Democrats have made their position fairly clear on the matter, no new airport in the South East, so here’s hoping we see some leadership from them on the issue. Moulton on the other hand seemed to enjoy tearing the project to pieces. From his experience he suspected the cost of the airport could rise to as much as £80 billion, a huge leap from the sum touted by supporters and an even bigger hike from the £8 billion that the chancellor has advocated for the UK’s annual transport infrastructure budget. Can that kind of funding, even from risk experts, really be possible? Moulton thought not. Why he claimed, invest in a project like this that could take upwards of 20 years to become reality? (Today, wise old Boris reckons 6 years is realistic) He also went on to point out that an airport in the South East would do very little for the regional divide in this country. It’s a topic that seems to pop up regularly and may yet have some value in this argument. Good point I thought.
The article then inevitably shifted focus to Johnson’s mayoral campaign. It was interesting that from the latest government by-election poll in Feltham ward (West London) Labour had a good lead, but in the mayoral election Boris had a 1 point lead in the same area. I guess you can’t read too much into that, if I lived near Heathrow last thing I’d want is another run way but then of course I’d never have moved there in the first fucking place. The election spin continued today and I was glad to see this news putting Ken Livingstone ahead by a whisker. The people of Kent and Essex don’t vote for a mayor of London so here’s hoping those that do make the right choice in May.
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