Boris Watch

The oddest thing about Kit Malthouse’s personal obsession with a new airport in the Thames Estuary is that there’s no way it can happen.  Labour are (wrongly) committed to a third runway at Heathrow while Tory national policy says nothing about huge new airports the wrong side of London.  It can’t be stressed too often that this is really just one man’s doodling on a map, rather than a serious contribution to national transport policy.  Boris can’t raise the money, doesn’t have the powers and won’t be in the job long enough.

To emphasis that, Theresa Villiers has apparently taken the time to write to the Lib Dem’s Norman Baker to make it clear that Boris’s plans are all his own:

In a letter to Lib-Dem MP Norman Baker, Ms Villiers wrote: “With regard to media debate on the possibility of a new airport in the Thames Estuary, this is not an option at which the Conservative party is looking.

“Boris Johnson is considering a range of ideas relevant to transport and aviation links to our capital city but this is his own initiative.”

That should be that.  Boris can get back to the desolate wastelands of London’s future transport system.  I think he finds all that rather boring compared with shiny new airports.  More on the airport scheme from The Green Top here and here, the latter making the point that the newly-crowned Spectator Politician Of The Year is already regarded as something of a Jonah by his own party.

Tags:   malthouse thames estuary airport conservativesNo Comments