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    #26
    Heathrow 3rd runway

    Tubbs, once again, I'm not following you.

    One of Stephens' points is that the conditions were set in order to compel this result. The reason why the bar wasn't set higher was because that would have made reaching the desired conclusion more difficult.

    And the idea that a former senior official of the CBI, BoE and FSA would be involved in an "establishment stitch-up" is surely as impossible to believe as the presence of gaming tables in the back room of Rick's Cafe Americain.

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      #27
      Heathrow 3rd runway

      Well indeed. Decent Chaps ask Decent Chap to come up with a report that offers a Reasonably Decent Chappish conclusion.

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        #28
        Heathrow 3rd runway

        E10 Rifle wrote: Well indeed. Decent Chaps ask Decent Chap to come up with a report that offers a Reasonably Decent Chappish conclusion.
        I'm not making that point at all.

        I don't say he has to be right about anything because he's had a good career in the Establishment. That's why I said "heavyweight". And nobody thinks the FSA was a success now, which he chaired.

        But I think he's smart enough not to be used by such a lightweight as Cameron. I think the intention to expand Heathrow is serious.

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          #29
          Heathrow 3rd runway

          ursus arctos wrote: Tubbs, once again, I'm not following you.

          One of Stephens' points is that the conditions were set in order to compel this result. The reason why the bar wasn't set higher was because that would have made reaching the desired conclusion more difficult.

          And the idea that a former senior official of the CBI, BoE and FSA would be involved in an "establishment stitch-up" is surely as impossible to believe as the presence of gaming tables in the back room of Rick's Cafe Americain.
          I don't get that at all.

          You agree with Stevens that this won't happen. But you say recommending it should happen was the "desired result"? The desired result, if you don't want to expand Heathrow is not to recommend Heathrow.

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            #30
            Heathrow 3rd runway

            But if Cameron wanted a way of seeming to oppose expansion while finding a way of getting it through anyway to please his business backers, then this seems a handy way to go about it. Cameron may be a "lightweight" but he's a good actor, PR salesman and political opportunist.

            I don't really know what a "heavyweight" is. Beyond a bit of a cliche

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              #31
              Heathrow 3rd runway

              Nesta Arantes do Nascimento wrote: I expect Heathrow have the clout to topple Cameron and Johnson if they really try and make things difficult.
              I think so too.

              Johnson had a nice "should have seen me in there" gig going as Mayor of London, with his support based in the outer boroughs. He could also use the "Boris Island" bollocks to promote himself.

              But it's a bit different when you're the PM or a senior Cabinet minister.

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                #32
                Heathrow 3rd runway

                What E10 said.

                I'm agnostic on the question of whether or not it is going to happen (while leaning no); the point is that the whole "review" was a farce and waste of 20 million quid.

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                  #33
                  Heathrow 3rd runway

                  To be clear, I agree with E10 too. The old "here's a report to give me political cover for a U-turn" is the oldest trick in the book. Establishment, minus part of it living in SW London, wants Heathrow expanded.

                  What caused me the confusion was purely the Stephens quote.

                  Unkind souls might call the report an establishment stitch-up. Never mind. Its conclusions are destined for the long grass. The pity is that money, time and energy will be wasted on a debate that can have only one outcome. Forget the commission’s expensively deceptive cost-benefit analyses. The runway will never be built.
                  I don't think Establishment stitch ups recommend things that will never get built.

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                    #34
                    Heathrow 3rd runway

                    So, you've bought your HS2 tickets, then.

                    Did you read the entire piece, by the way?

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                      #35
                      Heathrow 3rd runway

                      I agree too about the £20m being a waste of money, and said so upthread.

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                        #36
                        Heathrow 3rd runway

                        ursus arctos wrote: So, you've bought your HS2 tickets, then.

                        Did you read the entire piece, by the way?
                        I assumed it was paywalled, and reached my free limit a couple of days ago.

                        I think HS2 will happen, yes.

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                          #37
                          Heathrow 3rd runway

                          Your faith in the feasibility of pharaonic projects is admirable.

                          Here's the rest of the piece

                          Heathrow is in the wrong place — on the wrong side of the capital, more precisely. Its flight paths run directly above some of the city’s most densely populated neighbourhoods. Some 750,000 people — a full 28 per cent of those across the entire EU whose lives are blighted by aircraft noise — are unlucky enough to live near London’s largest airport.

                          Britain’s Supreme Court has ruled that air pollution levels around Heathrow — most dangerously, nitrogen dioxide — already breach the legal limits. To add another 250,000 flights a year to the present 470,000, with the concomitant increase in road traffic, is simply unimaginable.

                          For all the £20m spent on the report, it is still not certain that London actually needs a new runway. The city already has seven spread over six sites, as good as any serious competitor in Europe, and much of the capacity remains unused. Air traffic projections are notoriously unreliable. Only a fool would gamble tens of billions of pounds on a flimsy prediction that London may be short of capacity by 2030.

                          The case made by Heathrow management that London’s reputation as a centre for global business depends on the airport upgrading its “hub” status by handling more transit passengers is flimsy at best. The proportion of business passengers has been falling — from 38 per cent at the turn of the century to 30 per cent last year. More than two-thirds of those who pass through the airport are tourists. To slot in more flights for business leaders to the booming cities of China, Heathrow has merely to cede to Gatwick or Stansted a few bucket-and-spade routes to Mediterranean resorts.

                          The importance of transit customers is overstated. The growth in air travel has been in point-to-point flights by smaller, fuel-efficient aircraft. And, unlike Frankfurt or Amsterdam, London is the final destination for the vast majority of air travellers. Heathrow counts 36 per cent of its passengers as in transit but across the capital’s airports the figure falls to below 15 per cent.

                          As it happens, Heathrow is a terrible advertisement for Britain. Beyond the superficial glitter of Terminal 5, much of the site comprises a series of down-at-heel sheds bursting at the seams with lucrative (for the airport operator) shopping concessions. Those unfortunate enough to arrive at, say, Terminal 3 can only shake their head in wonderment that one of the world’s pre-eminent cities can be content with such squalor. Delays and disruption are endemic. Of the dozen flights I took in and out of Heathrow in the past two months, I counted only two that left or arrived in time.

                          The cost to the public purse is prohibitive. The commission guesses at a price tag of £18bn or so for the runway, with another £5bn-£6bn for the necessary improvements to surface transport to cope with the extra passengers. Transport for London has suggested the latter figure could end up as high as £20bn. That may be an overestimate. But, whichever way you look at it, British taxpayers would have to pay a massive subsidy to the shareholders of Heathrow.

                          So why has Heathrow fought so hard for a new runway? Easy. It wants to stifle competition. The airport is a cash cow, but slightly less so since the Competition Commission forced it to divest ownership of Gatwick. London’s second airport has been transformed by the break-up, but a third runway, the Airports Commission acknowledges, would divert back to Heathrow traffic from London’s other airports. The owners would regain a near monopoly.

                          What London needs are better surface connections between the other airports and faster rail and road routes into the capital. Heathrow will soon benefit from Crossrail. Rather than spend billions diverting the M4 and M25 motorways around Heathrow the government should be investing in surface connections to Gatwick and Stansted. If, as is possible, capacity does come under strain, it would be much cheaper and faster to add a second runway at Gatwick.

                          Politics will combine with logic to doom a third runway. David Cameron, the prime minister, does not have the majority to take the legislation through parliament. The heavyweights in the Conservative party opposed to expansion are led by Boris Johnson, the London mayor, and his would-be successor, Zac Goldsmith. They are backed by several members of the cabinet and by many local Tory MPs.

                          So this is one of those moments in politics when a prime minister can marry principle with pragmatism. “No ifs, no buts, no third runway”, the prime minister promised a few years back. He was right.

                          Comment


                            #38
                            Heathrow 3rd runway

                            Cheers.

                            Crossrail is pharaonic, but it's happening, apparently going very well, and people in London seem to think it should have been started yonks ago (it was nearly started in 1994).

                            There's a political risk to the HS2, in that it's seen as Londoncentric, and in that the Treasury probably don't like it. But it's perfectly feasible.

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                              #39
                              Heathrow 3rd runway

                              I'd far rather they spent the HS2 money on extending railway lines into areas that need better public transport links. Prioritising the needs of people over the perceived needs of business, basically.

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                                #40
                                Heathrow 3rd runway

                                To slot in more flights for business leaders to the booming cities of China, Heathrow has merely to cede to Gatwick or Stansted a few bucket-and-spade routes to Mediterranean resorts.
                                http://www.heathrowairport.com/flight-information/live-flight-departures

                                What bucket and spade destinations?

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                                  #41
                                  Heathrow 3rd runway

                                  One could start with most of these

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                                    #42
                                    Heathrow 3rd runway

                                    Jimski wrote: I'd far rather they spent the HS2 money on extending railway lines into areas that need better public transport links. Prioritising the needs of people over the perceived needs of business, basically.
                                    Only businessmen benefit from HS2?

                                    Comment


                                      #43
                                      Heathrow 3rd runway

                                      Berlin, Bangkok, Prague, Rome, Barcelona, Nice, Tenerife?

                                      edit- reply to 'what bucket and spade destinations?'

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                                        #44
                                        Heathrow 3rd runway

                                        ursus arctos wrote: One could start with most of these
                                        I looked at that too, but how many flights actually go to Funchal and Las Palmas etc?

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                                          #45
                                          Heathrow 3rd runway

                                          Tubby Isaacs wrote:
                                          Originally posted by Jimski
                                          I'd far rather they spent the HS2 money on extending railway lines into areas that need better public transport links. Prioritising the needs of people over the perceived needs of business, basically.
                                          Only businessmen benefit from HS2?
                                          Not quite what I said. It's being prioritised because of the business factor. (Most of the justification seems to be couched in such terms too.) But better to provide rail lines to those who don't have them at all than a better line to those who already have one.

                                          Comment


                                            #46
                                            Heathrow 3rd runway

                                            Nesta Arantes do Nascimento wrote: Berlin, Bangkok, Prague, Rome, Barcelona, Nice, Tenerife?

                                            edit- reply to 'what bucket and spade destinations?'
                                            I'll give you 3 flights to Tenerife. The others are also business cities, of course.

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                                              #47
                                              Heathrow 3rd runway

                                              Bit of an elementary howler to confuse 'business' with 'businessmen', isn't it?

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                                                #48
                                                Heathrow 3rd runway

                                                Heathrow needs more runway capacity. What it doesn't need is more flights or passengers. Instead it needs to reduce its airspace congestion and all those hours spent plonked on the taxiway waiting in a queue or flying round in circles over Watford.

                                                Comment


                                                  #49
                                                  Heathrow 3rd runway

                                                  Jimski wrote:
                                                  Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs
                                                  Originally posted by Jimski
                                                  I'd far rather they spent the HS2 money on extending railway lines into areas that need better public transport links. Prioritising the needs of people over the perceived needs of business, basically.
                                                  Only businessmen benefit from HS2?
                                                  Not quite what I said. It's being prioritised because of the business factor. (Most of the justification seems to be couched in such terms too.) But better to provide rail lines to those who don't have them at all than a better line to those who already have one.
                                                  Sorry for misunderstanding.

                                                  Businessmen are prioritized partly because they're so important to the fare income- see the collapse of National Express on the East Coast Mainline when the business travel market collapses.

                                                  But there are also massive benefits beyond businessmen in carrying extra freight and local services on the existing lines.

                                                  Comment


                                                    #50
                                                    Heathrow 3rd runway

                                                    Six to Palma.

                                                    There are more than a dozen routes from LHR just to Spain, not even taking into account any other place in Europe where the sun shines.

                                                    Suggesting the point is the equivalent of internet trolling is really quite silly.

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