Editorial: Votes and airports

A poll taken in the constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip last week found that 50 per cent of voters would put a cross against Boris Johnson’s name next May if he is chosen as Conservative candidate.  There’s nothing very surprising about that since the Conservative majority in 2010 was over eleven thousand.  But there is a snag. Some twelve thousand people living in Uxbridge and Ruislip work at Heathrow Airport and as many again are in employment related to the airport. Boris has called Heathrow a “dead duck” and said he would “fight to my dying breath to stop a third runway there”. He favours a completely new Thames estuary airport instead.
The timing is interesting. Sir Howard Davies’ interim report on London airports has already indicated that the Thames project is too costly despite being “of great imagination and ambition” (of course) and it is likely to be finally ruled out next month or October. While dashing Boris’s airport hopes that would save him the problem of costing the jobs of the people whose votes he wants. Funny thing, politics.