OFFICIAL - Heathrow is now more fashionable than Gatwick

Lord Soley claims Heathrow can either expand or decline but ATW:

Largest number of internationally-bound passengers annually
Busiest airports in Europe by passenger traffic
yet only
18th busiest in terms of cargo traffic, behind CDG Paris, Schipol Amsterdam and Frankfurt but this doesn't seem to be being held up as a reason for expansion

So hard to see how his argument holds up other than from Heathrow already being over-used (and maybe that T5 was built with a view to third runway so there's lots of investment at stake). He's not making enough of the environmental decline vs economic decline question and instead focussing on the idea that Heathrow supposedly 'loses ground' to rival hubs. It's very annoying.

lol i was about to revive this

From the Guardian:

1pm Mutiny in the Commons, reports the PA parliament wire:

"Labour's John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) suspended from the Commons after picking up the mace and repeatedly challenging the Government's decision on Heathrow."

The mace?

will the land-owning alliance thing ft. Alistair Macgowan and others actually work?

xpost http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/82544.stm

Apparently he picked it up and was waving it at Geoff Hoon!

will the land-owning alliance thing ft. Alistair Macgowan and others actually work?

Might hold things up a bit, but I can't see it prevailing.

good for McDonnell, high time we had another mace swinger

Ace of Mace

We don't need more planes. We need fewer planes.

i'm sure they're just saying this as opposition but The Tories called it a "bleak day for the environment" and said they would "fight it every step of the way". still surprising

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
MPs told of decision
Planning process begins - this will take years
Legal challenge likely in days
If Tories win next election they would scrap plan
If all goes according to government plan, construction would start in 2015
Third runway due to finish 2019

2015...could be in the middle of a economic mini-boom by then anyway. fuckers.

This government loves to make unpopular decisions. I wonder why?

Hoon banned from music festival

Organisers of Latitude, the fashionable and very green Suffolk event, have barred the transport secretary, who has attended every year with some of his family and detectives, to watch bands such as Franz Ferdinand and Sigur Rós.

Dude was Defence Secretary in the build-up to the Iraq war and Latitude ban him because of an airport.

Perhaps watching Sigur Ros was punishment enough for that.