Why is it that a government can plan a high speed railway costing £75bn, running across some of the most solid deep blue Tory constituencies in the country, with their MPs up in arms, yet bottles out of a new runway for Heathrow just because of fears it might lose one by-election?
Firstly, let me state that personally I am glad the Government has once again deferred a decision for a new runway at Heathrow. I hope it will mean dropping the idea altogether. Heathrow is in the wrong place. It is surrounded by a dense conurbation.
Anyone who has undergone the Los-Angeles style six lane motorway that is the M25 junction with the M4 and still finds it blocked solid knows that this is not the place to bring in even more traffic. And anyway Heathrow’s appetite for endless expansion knows no bounds. We thought we had seen the last of the airport’s territorial aggrandisement when Terminal 5 was built. Once a new runway is constructed there will be calls for another runway another terminal.
But of course the reasons for deferring a decision are entirely political. If Zac Goldsmith, who opposes the Heathrow runway, resigns as Richmond MP then there is an extremely good chance the Liberal Democrats would win it in a by-election.
Then we have mayor Boris, who as Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP since May this year, is also opposed to Heathrow, and who the Tories want to see in government come next May.
This no way to run our infrastructure even though it would be naïve of me to think building any transport link is not politically contentious. After all many of our Victorian ancestors hated the way railways were pushed through the countryside. However, I remain puzzled as to why a Tory revolt over HS2 from its Buckinghamshire MPs can be risked but not a by-election in Richmond.
